


Motherland

by GeneralIrritation



Series: The Gotham City Society of Fireproof Women [9]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: ...then you have come to the right place, If you've been looking for a massive multi-chapter Cass-is-Batman epic..., Multi, Now when I say "Slow-Burn...", The Final Story of Earth 803, The final fan story of GeneralIrritation, additional character and relationship tags to be added as they appear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-01-27 16:46:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 36
Words: 233,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21395422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeneralIrritation/pseuds/GeneralIrritation
Summary: THE FINAL CHAPTER!Fourteen years in the future, it will be Gotham City's past that comes back to haunt it.And as Cassandra Cain ascends to the title of The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne must reckon with what happens when his eternal war on crime finally ends.thegeneralreturns.tumblr.com
Relationships: Barbara Gordon/Simon Baz, Bart Allen/Rose Wilson, Clark Kent/Lois Lane, Diana (Wonder Woman)/Kate Kane, Dinah Lance/Ryan Choi, Jessica Cruz/Koriand'r, Roy Harper/Donna Troy, Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne, Stephanie Brown/Cassandra Cain, Talia al Ghul/David Hyde
Series: The Gotham City Society of Fireproof Women [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1333402
Comments: 418
Kudos: 292





	1. An Actor, an Heiress, and a Cop Walk into a Bar

**Chapter 1: An Actor, an Heiress, and a Cop Walk Into a Bar**

* * *

_“History does not repeat itself… _

* * *

**ONCE UPON A TIME IN ARKHAM ASYLUM**

As the riot reached its apex, the main power went out, and the auxiliary generators kicked in, bathing Arkham Asylum in the red of the emergency lights.

Tucker Grove, a thirty-eight-year-old orderly, escorted Doctor Ingrid Karlsson down one of the few empty hallways left in D Wing.

Doctor Karlsson was very scared, very sweaty…

...and very pregnant.

The Victim Syndicate had made their presence felt. They overpowered the guards on the way to their cells, and managed to reach central control, freeing all of Arkham’s patients from their cells.

The police had been called in.

The Batman would be on his way as well, if he hadn’t arrived already.

“You alright, Doc?” Tucker asked.

“I’m… I’m not feeling great,” Doctor Karlsson said in her light Swedish accent, working her arm around Tucker’s shoulders before the offer could be made. “I need your help.”

“Alright,” Tucker said. “I gotcha.”

A boom from beyond the closed door at the end of the hall. They wouldn’t be getting out that way.

Tucker looked around and saw, to his luck, that there was an observation room to his left.

The door was unlocked.

Tucker gently lugged Doctor Karlsson into the observation room drenched in crimson light. It was made to look like a rec room, with a couple of tables in the middle, couches on one side, and a shelf of board games on the right.

Two-way glass dominated the far wall, of course.

Tucker attempted to ferry Doctor Karlsson to one of the red push couches by the left wall.

“Alright, doc. Let’s see if…”

A voice, high and cruel and familiar, sounded from the other side of the room.

“Occupado, kiddies. If you want to get up to the dickens, you’re going to have to go somewhere else.”

And then… the laughter. The jagged sound made of madness. The laughter countless people heard before they died.

Tucker’s head snapped toward the direction of the voice, and he immediately knew that he was going to have a terrible night. A night so terrible that seeing the next morning was in grave doubt.

There were four people sitting around one of the tables, each with playing cards in their hands.

On the right was Basil Karlo, also known as _“Clayface.” _ He wasn’t sitting on a chair, or at least not a chair that Arkham had provided. He had made a chair from the hulking and malleable beige expanse of his own body.

Seated on the left was a small, scrawny man of middle age with an unkempt mop of straw-colored hair. Unrecognizable out of costume, but both his mugshots and his psych evals proclaimed this unassuming gentleman to be Doctor Jonathan _ “Scarecrow” _ Crane.

Taking up the chair farthest away from Tucker and Doctor Karlsson was a man whose right side was handsome and roguish, and whose left side was a vast and stomach-churning topography of burn scars that had claimed his lips, his ear, his eyelid, his hair. Former Gotham City District Attorney Harvey Dent, and current supervillain Two-Face.

And seated the closest to them was a slim fellow with deathly white skin, dingy green hair, and ruby-red lips that were always bent unnaturally into a smile.

The Devil Himself.

_The Joker… _

All four rose from the table. The chairlegs that Clayface had used to support himself had receded into the putty of his body.

And all four advanced on them.

“Well, well, well,” The Joker said, moving his green eyes from Tucker to Doctor Karlsson and back again, as though the two were both sides of an intense tennis match. “What have we here?”

Looking back on this evening years later, Tucker Grove had to wonder whether he spent those brief, paralyzing moments under the predatory gaze of The Joker imagining ways in which the situation could have gotten worse.

Whether he had pondered the idea in the moment or not, the situation had, indeed gotten worse.

For Doctor Karlsson emitted a low, pained groan. Her lips pulled back in a rictus of torment, and stray wisps of blonde hair were plastered to her plump, freckled cheeks with tears and sweat. And Tucker heard the sound of liquid spattering upon the linoleum floor.

Doctor Ingrid Karlsson’s water had just broken.

The only one of the four supervillains who did not react to this new development with muted shock was Clayface. He backed up, his unblinking yellow eyes going wide within the fleshy expanse of his enormous head, and said _ “Whoa! _ Oh, _man…” _

The Joker looked from the puddle of amniotic fluid spreading on the floor, back to Tucker and the now-whimpering Doctor Karlsson.

In the red of the emergency lights, the green of The Joker’s irises had flattened into the rest of his eyeballs. His two pupils looked as though they were floating in their own separate pools of blood. Tucker had had nightmares for years after this where those eyes took center stage.

The Joker finally spoke.

“Basil, old boy?"

“Yeah?” Clayface asked.

“Watch the door.”

Clayface trundled off to the door. The Joker looked at Doctor Karlsson with a smile that actually looked genuine.

“Now,” he said. “Let’s—”

“Wait,” said Two-Face. He reached into the pocket of his neon orange Arkham-issue scrubs.

The Joker rolled his eyes, as Scarecrow asked “Really, Harvey? _Really?” _

Two-Face had produced an old silver dollar that was pristine on one side, and horrifically burnt on the other.

**“wE dOn’T dO nUtHiN’ tiLL tHe CoiN SaYs wE dO sOmEtHiN’,”** said Two-Face.

Two-Face flipped the coin…

...only for The Joker to snatch it out of the air.

Two-Face looked at The Joker with barely restrained fury as the Clown Prince of Crime pushed the coin back into Two-Face’s hand with a grin that managed the paradoxical feat of being maniacal and sheepish at the same time.

“It landed heads,” The Joker said. “Trust me.”

He then turned his attention to Doctor Karlsson, who was now sobbing from trying to hold in her agony, and sagging to the floor, almost bringing Tucker down with her.

“Now then, Doc,” The Joker said, “for one night only, you can call me _‘Walt.’ _ Because much like the wholesome entertainment from the evil and soulless Disney Corporation… I’m about to bring out the kid in you. Harv, Jon-Jon, if you’d be so kind?”

Wordlessly, Two-Face and Scarecrow took one of Doctor Karlsson’s arms and led her further into the room. Tucker made to follow them, but The Joker placed a white hand upon his chest, stopping him.

“Say,” The Joker said, “you wouldn’t happen to be one of those useless fellows who comes over squeamish at the prospect of a woman giving birth, are you?”

Tucker nodded.

Because it was true.

And lying to The Joker seemed like a bad idea.

“Oh, dear,” The Joker said. “That won’t do at all. Normally under these circumstances, I’d gouge out one of your eyes and use the empty socket as a urinal. On a good day, I’d even let you pick which one. But…”

The Joker looked deep into the room. Two-Face had lowered Doctor Karlsson onto the floor. Scarecrow had received cushions from the chairs to elevate her head.

He then looked back at Tucker.

“But I don’t want to ruin Doctor Karlsson’s big day. Do you?”

Tucker shook his head.

The Joker clapped his hands.

“There’s a good lad! Now why don’t you have a seat, don’t touch anything, and we’ll send you out of here with one more member of your party than your came in with.”

Tucker immediately sat down, and looked at the floor. He knew the catch was coming, but until it got here, he would do what The Joker said.

The first thing he heard was The Joker say to Doctor Karlsson “Now I’m afraid I’ll have to see to the removal of your undergarments, but only because I have to. Trust me, I’m a one woman kinda guy.”

Then the screaming. Then the... noises, wet and squishy. Tucker Grove truly was the squeamish sort and neither in the moment, nor in hindsight, did he wish to speculate as to the reason for those noises.

And Christ in heaven, the _smell... _

He heard Scarecrow ask Doctor Karlsson something.

“Epidural, Doctor Karlsson?”

“DEAR GOD, NO!”

A pause, before Scarecrow said “Good call. It seems I’ve brought the wrong syringe.”

More screaming, more noises, as these three supervillains with a body count between them in the thousands... calmly and professionally delivered Doctor Ingrid Karlsson’s baby.

As the crying of a newborn filled the observation room, The Joker laughed and crowed his delight.

_“It’s a girl! _ As of now, anyway. Who knows what the future holds? Basil, I need something sharp to do away with this pesky umbilical cord. Do be a dear…”

As Clayface’s feet thudded back from the door, Tucker took the chance, and looked up.

The Joker was holding a wriggling, squalling mass of flesh to his chest as Clayface arrived. He transformed the index finger on his right hand into a long knife, and snipped the umbilical cord.

At which point, The Joker knelt down, and put the baby girl into her mother’s arms.

“And there we go,” The Joker said. “What’s her name, if I may be so bold?”

Doctor Karlsson was about to say something, when the door opened.

A heavy set and rather dazed looking guard in security blues entered, holding something in his right hand that Tucker couldn’t immediately recognize.

The guard (who would later be identified as thirty-one-year-old Michael Hartounian) wiped some sweat from his brow.

“The riot’s over,” Hartounian said. “Thank God. I heard someone in here. What’s—”

The emergency power switched off, and the overhead lights switched back on.

Hartounian’s eyes went wide, and his skin immediately went pale.

When asked by investigators what, in his estimation, could have been going through Michael Hartounian’s head during the incident, Tucker Grove’s reply was simple.

_“He saw The Joker covered in blood, standing over one of the doctors.” _

Hartounian stifled a scream, reared back, and threw the object in his hand.

The object in question being a Batarang that Hartounian had taken as a souvenir earlier in the night when Batman himself had cleared out C Wing.

A Batarang is a specialized piece of equipment, each custom-made with the arm length and muscle-mass of the person wielding it in mind.

Which is to say that the Batarang Michael Hartounian threw did not hit The Joker.

It did not hit Two-Face, Clayface, or Scarecrow either.

What it did hit was Doctor Ingrid Karlsson’s jugular vein, before it embedded itself into the floor right next to her head.

A font of blood resulted, dousing Doctor Karlsson’s newborn daughter, spraying The Joker, Two-Face, Clayface, Scarecrow, even hitting the ceiling before it finally died down.

And Doctor Ingrid Karlsson was dead before she even realized what had happened.

A stunned pall, a deathly silence save for the mewling newborn girl, and no one moved.

Until the heads of all four supervillains _slooooooooowly _turned to look at Michael Hartounian.

It was The Joker who moved. He shambled toward Hartounian, who it must be reasoned was so terrified and shocked that he had simply forgotten about the taser in his work-belt or, indeed, the open door to the hallway just a foot away from him.

The Joker stopped about a foot away from him.

His eyes were dead.

And he was not smiling.

The Joker’s eyes finally made contact with those of the sweating and shivering Michael Hartounian.

In the space of a finger-snap, The Joker lunged in, wrapped his large, blocky teeth around Hartounian’s windpipe, and pulled back.

Hartounian couldn’t even scream. He had nothing left with which _to _ scream. His hands trembled as it caught the geyser of blood from what remained of his throat, before he dropped to his knees, and fell to the floor, having expired before his head hit the linoleum.

The blood-drenched Joker calmly took off his neon orange scrub shirt, gave it a rough shake (the excess blood from which sprayed Tucker Grove’s face at his position on the couch), and turned it inside out.

From there he walked to Doctor Karlsson’s corpse, swaddled the crying newborn in the relative dryness of the inside-out scrub shirt…

...and brought the girl over to Tucker.

His white face streaked in rusty brown as Hartounian’s blood had already begun to coagulate. His eyes were still dead.

“You will protect the girl, yes?”

Tucker, not knowing what else to do, simply nodded.

That seemingly permanent smile crept back to The Joker’s face. His pupils dilated within his green irises.

“Good,” he said.

He gently placed the baby in Tucker Grove’s arms, before walking back to his three cohorts.

Thirteen months after the birth of that baby girl and the death of her mother, The Joker himself would die at the hands of his long-suffering former therapist and then-current girlfriend Doctor Harleen Quinzel, who had been operating under the supervillain _ nom-de-guerre “Harley Quinn.” _

And in the five years that followed, Two-Face, Clayface, and Scarecrow would be dead as well. 

* * *

**GOTHAM CITY - NOW**

It has been fourteen years (to the day, oddly enough) since the atrocity known as _ “Game Seven,” _ during which 62,118 innocent Gotham citizens met their ends during the seventh game of the World Series at the hands of the supervillain Arthur _ “Cluemaster” _Brown.

Which means that it’s been fourteen years (again, to the day) that the Age of the Supervillain in Gotham City unofficially and swiftly ended.

After Cluemaster blew up Wayne Stadium and the four blocks around it, making Gotham City home to the worst human terrorist attack in the history of planet Earth, Gotham’s Rogue’s Gallery seemingly took it upon themselves to cease operations.

There were any number of theories as to why this was.

One stated that they feared a Gotham populace run ragged. Game Seven was, after all, just ten months removed from The Battle of Founders Island, which claimed the lives of almost four-hundred civilians as well as forty-eight members of the superhero community. And that in itself was a year-and-a-half from the siege of The Undying, in which former Gotham mayor Hamilton Hill seemingly came back from the dead and took the city hostage. After such tragedy in such a short amount of time, some thought that the villains of Gotham were afraid to push the citizenry too far. There were numerous Gotham City supercriminals, sure, but there were nine-point-two _ million _ Gothamites. Nine-point-two million people who were much closer to their breaking points that they had been almost three years prior.

Yet another posited that the supervillains of Gotham finally saw the error of their ways, seeing how grievously wounded the city was in the wake of Game Seven. And that hypothesis was… well, it was just adorable, really.

But the explanation deemed most likely by criminologists and TV talking heads for the near-simultaneous cessation of supercriminal activity among Gotham’s criminal elite was due to the fact that Game Seven killed _sixty-two thousand people! _ No one left had the intelligence or the resources to pull off anything that could possibly top it. Gotham’s supervillains were a peacockish sort, and Arthur Brown, even in death, had the biggest feathers.

So they just… faded away. Thomas Elliot was stabbed in the showers at Arkham Asylum by an unknown party. Hamilton Hill died of a stroke in his cell. Victor Fries had successfully cured the MacGregor Syndrome that had plagued his wife, and after she was thawed out, he showed no inclination toward criminal activity whatsoever. Oswald Cobblepot was still around, still running his casino and selling his guns, but the people who still called him _ “The Penguin” _had a habit of disappearing.

Of special note, however, is the fate of Edward _“The Riddler” _ Nygma. He was released from Arkham and hired on a provisional consulting basis as a profiler for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In the fourteen years since Game Seven, he helped catch a whopping _eight _ serial killers. He’s written two books on the subject, both of which became bestsellers. He’s a fixture on cable news documentaries. The attention he sought all throughout his life was now being foisted upon him, and those who know him personally say he smiles a lot more now than he did in his supervillain days.

But as the age of the supervillain waned in Gotham, so too did the city itself. Game Seven left the place in a fugue state from which it never truly recovered. The population dropped from nine-point-two million on the day of Game Seven to the current eight-point-one million. Across nearly a decade and a half, one-point-one million Gotham citizens had decided enough was enough, and moved away.

The city had no identity anymore. For good or for ill, Gotham was defined by its colorful criminal element, and the dour spirit of vengeance who combatted it. No one swooped in from parts unknown to use Gotham as their launching pad for world domination. It’d be like starting in Pittsburgh. There’s just no point.

Which isn’t to say that it was all porridge-gray listlessness. Last year, Gotham City became the first major metropolitan city to elect a transgender mayor, and there was a wildly expensive monorail system connecting the mainland to the three islands that was set to start running unmanned tests soon. But while other cities had to contend with the costumed antics of Captain Cold or Toyman, Silver Swan or Sea Daddy, Gotham City had to make due with normal crime. A mafia boss here, a gang war there, drugs, gun-running, and the once in a blue moon serial killer.

But this was not to say that Gotham City was bereft of costumed crimefighters.

For Gotham City was home to a superhero known the world over for his prowess, his skill, and his daring.

This is in reference, naturally, to The Signal.

Having been on the scene for ten years, The Signal captured the hearts and the imaginations of the citizens of Gotham by doing something altogether new and unexpected in that city’s vigilantes.

He came out during the daytime.

The Signal was media friendly to an extent that, when _ Catco Magazine _published their most recent list of the fifty most popular superheroes (as decided by reader poll), The Signal placed sixth. The highest of Gotham’s vigilantes.

Or rather, highest among Gotham’s _active _ vigilantes. Spoiler placed third. She’d been hovering in the top five for the past fourteen years, despite having been missing for all that time.

But The Signal was not the only vigilante in Gotham City. In fact, he was just one of the main three.

For many a Gotham criminal has looked up to the sky to see a vision in white, chomping at the bit to thrash them until they forget how to count.

The Gotham underworld called her _“The White Witch of Gotham.” _

The police reports, however, call her _“Mother Panic.” _

Whether The Signal has metahuman powers is not for the rank and file citizen of Gotham City to say, but judging from the one photographed appearance of Mother Panic, she very much did. She had made it to a mobster’s getaway car just after he himself did, and Mother Panic simply lifted the front wheels off the pavement until he finally gave up.

But stopping at The Signal or Mother Panic would give an incomplete picture of the vigilante scene in Gotham City.

Because… of course… there was The Bat.

For almost thirty years, Gotham City has both flourished and languished under Batman’s shadow. He began as an urban legend, before he evolved to an actual figure in the public consciousness. A daring vigilante, with a side of mascot and tourist attraction thrown in. There was video footage of him. Every once in a while one would see his car on the street, or his plane in the sky.

But six years ago, something… _ changed. _

Batman seemingly receded back into the shadows. No one had seen him, but his handiwork was everywhere. In the broken limbs and the concussed skulls of mobsters, gang members, killers, thieves. They all knew that The Bat had apprehended them, but he had gotten so much faster, so much more brutal, that the men and women on the receiving end of his brutality were out like lights before they could lay an eye on him, let alone a finger.

And so what began as myth in the crowded, gothic fun house of Gotham City became such once again.

_“They say he can’t be killed...” _

_“They say he drinks blood…” _

This is the Gotham City in which we find ourselves on this chilly October evening. We descend from the clouds, mingle with the tips of the skyscrapers, inhale the scent of car exhaust (and, yes, urine, let’s be honest) into our lungs.

Miagani Island is where we’re going tonight. It’s the home of the entertainment district, which despite how well the rest of the city may or may not be doing at a given time, has always thrived. 

Over on the corner of Stephany Boulevard and Marx Avenue, there sits the Boudroux Theater. An intimate venue that seats seven hundred, it was rented out this particular evening by the Gotham Shakespeare Company. Every year on this very night, to commemorate the lives lost in Game Seven, the GSC holds a benefit performance for the Game Seven First Responder’s Fund. Yeah, it’s a black tie affair, but the attendees pay out huge, and that’s what really matters.

This year, the Gotham Shakespeare Company decided to hold a performance of _Macbeth. _

Your ticket is waiting for you at the box office. Sure the show’s almost over, but if you head in now, you might just see the actor playing Lady Macbeth take her bow…

* * *

At first blush, a seasoned goer of theater might assume that the woman cast as Lady Macbeth might be miscast.

First, even though the actress was thirty-three (a reasonable age for one to play the part, yet still on the young side) she looked roughly ten years younger.

Second, if the strict interpretation that the production provided was anything to go by, Lady Macbeth was the only Asian woman in medieval Scotland.

Yet when she went on stage to take her bow, the sustained applause got even louder.

She went on last, a departure from the norm of the lead actor playing Macbeth taking the final bow, but anyone who went to see Shakespeare in Gotham City paid to see this particular actor playing Lady Macbeth.

For the last ten years, she had been a fixture on the Gotham stage, first making her debut as Ariel in _The Tempest. _ Her Cleopatra drew raves, her Viola drew laughs, her Constance drew tears.

So respected was the actor in question that, during the production of _ Romeo & Juliet _ five years ago, she and the other lead actor, one Jeremy Fenton, flipped a coin on the morning of each performance to determine who would play Romeo and who would play Juliet that evening, and yes, that included gendered costume changes.

Not that this actor limited herself to Shakespeare, heavens no. She made plays by Chekhov, by Ibsen, by Williams bend and warp to her considerable magnetism.

It would be a mistake to assume that she was limited to the classics. She’d done her fair share of original work by up-and-coming playwrights in Gotham’s never-ending quest to compete with Broadway. She’d played doting mothers and drug dealers, listless serial killers and secretaries with delusions of grandeur. During one play about the city’s history, she had even earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination from the Gotham City Dramatics Board for playing Harley Quinn

But no musicals, though. Her voice had a depth to it, combined with a light rasp that one critic provided with the complimentary label of _ “whiskey-soaked.” _ This quality, however, was not conducive to carrying a tune, and she herself would admit that she couldn’t sing worth a damn.

_Gotham Gazette _ drama critic Karl Chattuck wrote _“What lends her performances authenticity, particularly in Shakespeare, is an innate physicality. While others would let the Bard’s words guide the rest of their bodies, she starts with how she moves, and works inward. A single stoop of the shoulder, a correction of posture, and she _ becomes _who she is playing.” _

It was a point of oddity, however, that she did not make the jump to Broadway despite many lucrative offers, nor did she take any film work. When asked why this was, she said to a reporter for the _Gazette’s _Lifestyle section:

_“If I did that, then I’d have to leave Gotham City.” _

But tonight, as she took center stage, the applause got louder, and one could hear isolated whistles and hoots.

And so Cassandra Wayne surveyed her adoring public, out there in the dark, and took her bow.

* * *

The bar where the afterparty was held (which was so popular an establishment for such a specific purpose that the owner renamed the bar _“Afterparty”) _ was just two blocks away from the theater. Cassandra didn’t need to call her driver for this one.

Cassandra had changed out of her costume and into black slacks, a black turtleneck, and a yellow leather jacket. She had debated wearing sunglasses, even though she would be indoors at night just to play into the douchey actor stereotype for any civilians who might be there, and decided against it.

Afterparty was either a dive bar with a high opinion of itself or a mid-range joint with a low opinion of itself. It was dark, but the dinge was practiced. The prices on the drinks and the fact that the place was carpeted testified to that.

Cassandra entered to a throng of actors and tech crew inside, but the first person to greet her was Barbara Gordon.

She had come to the performance in a red evening dress and heels, with her red hair up in a bun. Barbara wasn’t so much _pushing _ forty, so much as gently brushing against forty’s wrapping paper. 

Barbara marched over to Cassandra, a broad smile on her face, and wrapped her in a hug.

“You were great,” she said.

“Thank you.”

Barbara unwrapped her from the hug and stood there, smiling at her.

“You want to get out of here right now, don’t you?” Cassandra asked.

Barbara slumped her shoulders.

“Oh, dear _God _ yes,” she said. “I’ve been backstage at enough of Zatanna’s shows to know that me and showpeople don’t mix. Extroverts… _ expressing _themselves… It’s _ disgusting.” _

Cassandra cringed slightly at the mention of Zatanna’s name.

Sixteen years prior, when the Undying held sway in Gotham, Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl and current Oracle, had been in a wheelchair. Zatanna, running against the clock, used her magic powers to heal Barbara’s destroyed spine to get an extra player on the field.

Barbara had viewed this as a shocking breach of trust, tantamount to using her body without her permission. And Cassandra knew for a fact that, sixteen years later, Barbara still hadn’t forgiven her.

“Well,” Cassandra said, “you have my permission to leave.”

“I mean I don’t _want _ to leave,” Barbara said. “I still have some catching up to do with Duke.”

Barbara turned to her left, and Cassandra turned along with her.

Sitting alone at one of the tables next to the wall, a tall glass of soda in front of him, was a black man in a cheap blue suit. He was on the skinny side, and his brown eyes had this habit of sparkling in the right light.

This was Gotham City Homicide Detective Duke Thomas.

“I need to use the little girl’s room,” Barbara said, and then departed.

Cassandra walked over to Duke and sat down across from him.

“Great work,” Duke said.

“Thank you. Where are Riko and the kids?”

“Home,” Duke said. “Jay’s getting into hockey, Izzy’s getting into gymnastics, they both had practice tonight.”

“Riko not into Shakespeare?”

“I tried getting her into it,” Duke said. “She didn’t want to watch the Youtube videos saying what all the thees and thous meant. She spends all her free time nowadays playing _S&S Online. _ She has a raid tonight.”

An odd sight, a homicide cop able to angle his way around Shakespeare. Then again, Duke was named after a historical figure popularized by Shakespeare. To hear him tell it, Duke Thomas was named by his father after Duke Thomas Beaufort of Exeter from _Henry V. _ Though Cassandra couldn’t vouch for that tale’s veracity. It was entirely possible that Duke was covering up for being a hopeless nerd in a line of work that resented genuine intelligence. 

Which was yet another oddity that surrounded Duke Thomas. Due to her vicious and relentless upbringing by the notorious assassin David Cain, Cassandra Wayne (formerly Cain) could read peoples' body language to the extent that she could tell whether they were lying, or telling the truth.  
  
Everyone, that is, except Duke.  
  
Cassandra couldn't explain it. Either Detective Duke Thomas was a master of subtlety so formidable that he could mask his intent form God Himself, or even his bullshit was as earnest as the rest of him, and so, was indistinguishable from the truth.  
  
“Well,” Cassandra said, “Riko should be thankful she has such a cultured husband.”

Duke raised his glass of soda and said “You’re goddamn right she should.”

As Cassandra nodded, there was a great uproar over in the corner.

“NOW ALL OF YOU FUCK OFF!”

Cassandra groaned, feeling acid rising in her stomach. The huddle of people over in the corner should have been a dead giveaway, but that loud plea for privacy cinched it.

The mass of actors and tech crew parted, revealing a woman in her mid-thirties sitting at the bar. She was wearing a black cocktail dress, over which she wore a black leather jacket. Her pale skin, black undercut that tapered off into a short ponytail, and frosty blue eyes gave the aura of the goth girl in a nineties teen movie who decided to give into her normie peers and go to the prom. Marring the effect somewhat was her size, as she was six feet tall.

This was billionaire heiress (and Gotham tabloid mainstay) Violet Paige.

Cassandra and Duke both sighed, and then got up to go talk to her.

She could see from a distance that Violent had applied makeup matching her skin-tone about her arms, back, and chest to cover up her scars.

Which seemed, to Cassandra, an awful waste of time. She herself opted for plastic surgery to get rid of hers.

On the way, Malcolm Danbury, the redheaded gentleman who played Banquo, walked up to Cassandra with a smile on his face and stars in his eyes.

“Cass!” he said. _“Violet Paige just told me to fuck off!” _

“Congratulations,” Cassandra said.

“I know, right! 

After Malcolm departed, Cassandra sat on the stool to Violet’s right. Duke to her left.

“If I had to describe Violet Paige’s most admirable qualities,” Duke said, “it’s the warm and delightful way she makes friends.”

Violet rolled her eyes at Duke, before she looked at Cassandra.

“No Bruce tonight?” Violet asked. “No Selina?”

“Selina and Dad have already seen me in _Macbeth,” _ Cassandra said.

“Shame,” Violet said. “Us old money families have to stick together.”

Cassandra closed her eyes before she rolled them. This is what Violet said when she wanted to talk to Cassandra in private.

Duke picked up on it.

“I’m gonna go talk to Barbara,” Duke said. 

“Be safe,” said Cassandra.

“I’m in a room full of actors.”

“I know,” Cassandra said. “Be safe.”

Duke patted Cassandra on the shoulder before he left.

Cassandra watched Violet stare at the bar for a moment, but felt Violet reach over, putting the pinky of her left hand on the pinky of Cassandra’s right.

“You still can’t cry on cue,” Violet said.

Cassandra knew that, in the world of Violet Paige, this was what passed for an opening.

“I can,” Cassandra said. “I just chose not to.”

“Sure you did. You don’t think the _ ‘Out, damned spot _’ scene could have used some tears? You just quivered your lip and shook your shoulders.”

“No,” Cassandra said. “Even at that low point, Lady Macbeth wants to keep her dignity, even as her guilt is consuming her.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“I’m well aware.”

Violet smiled faintly at that, still looking at the bar. She moved her whole hand over Cassandra’s.

“Violet,” Cassandra said, taking her hand out from under Violet’s. “No.”

Now Violet looked at her. For a face that was so used to conveying rage and insolence, disappointment looked at home there.

“Why not?” Violet asked, her voice a high whisper.

“We had our shot,” Cassandra said. “It didn’t work. Do you know the definition of insanity, or do you need me to tell you?”

Violet blinked, and her face immediately snapped to her usual stony arrogance. Just flipped on a dime like that.

Cassandra knew a bad actor when she saw one.

“I’m offering you… Look, what the hell else are you doing tonight?”

“Big Belly Burger and _Mulholland Drive _ for the nine millionth time,” Cassandra said.

“And you’d rather do that than be with me?”

Cassandra closed her eyes, and let her breath escape from her nose.

Violet drank some of the martini in front of her, and folded her arms on the bar.

“Look,” she said. “You were happy for one hot minute.”

“I was.”

“So was I.”

“I know.”

“And you don’t want that back?”

“What I want,” Cassandra said, “is something else. Because I deserve more than one hot minute of happiness. And so do you.”

Violet was choking on her reply, when Duke came back around.

“We have an urgent matter that requires our immediate attention,” he said.

“What is it?” Cassandra asked.

Duke pointed at the television behind the bar.

It was a Channel 52 special report.

The sound was down on the television, but the aerial shot of a familiar building, as well as the chyron down that the bottom of the screen, told the whole story.

_“BANK ROBBERY IN PROGRESS” _

“A bank robbery?” Violet asked.

“You bring your work clothes?’ Duke asked Cassandra.

“Always do,” Cassandra said.

Violet had to ask the question again. “A _bank robbery?” _

She started laughing. It was a high, clear sound that drew not only Duke and Cassandra’s attention, but that of a few members of the _Macbeth _ cast as well.

Violet covered her mouth as she calmed down. “That… That’s just _cute.”  
_

* * *

**PARISOT, NORTH CAROLINA**

With tears in her eyes, Aaliyah Ramsey dug a hole with her bare hands as her hometown burned down in the distance.

It was just a white pinprick from where she was, and if a car passed by, the headlights would have caught her bright red and white cheerleading uniform--getting dirtier by the second--before it picked up her black hair and dark skin. Every few seconds, she could hear the faint but unmistakable sound of gunfire off in the distance as she cried. 

And dug.

She’d been fifty miles away when the shit went down. She was cheering for the Parisot High football team _(Go, Pumas!) _ over in Lamont. She and her friend Lili Goodrich opted to stay behind in Lamont after Parisot’s losing effort against the Lamont Lynx. Parisot didn’t have a Big Belly Burger, after all.

The quarterback from Lamont High was there, and he was… cute. After about a half an hour of flirting, which she knew equated to treason against her school, she rode back to Parisot with Lili, who had her license.

They were twenty miles away from Parisot when they saw the fires off in the distance. Lili pulled her white Mazda over to the side of the road, and they both got out.

“Are… are those _gunshots?” _ Lili had asked.

Staring in terror at the miniscule thumbnail of fire off in the all-consuming dark, Aaliyah remembered her mother’s words.

_“If anything ever happens to us…” _

She turned to Lili. “You have family in Raleigh, right?”

Lili’s bangs, a store-bought blonde, had quivered upon her pasty forehead. “Yeah, but—”

“Go,” Aaliyah had said. “Don’t stop for anything.”

_“Yeah, _ but—”

Tears brimming in her eyes, Aaliyah thundered at her best friend.

_“GO! NOW!” _

It took a couple of seconds of trembling, but Lili Goodrich finally got back in her car, and did as she was told.

Once she was gone, Aaliyah Ramsey, junior cheerleader for the Parisot Pumas, looked off into the distant fires.

There were no more Parisot Pumas.

There was no more Parisot High.

There was no more Parisot. A town of two-thousand, gone in… whatever it was.

Her mom and dad were almost certainly dead in that massacre.

And if she’d gone home on the bus with the coaches and the cheerleaders and the football team, she’d most likely be dead as well. 

Aaliyah then started walking. For how many miles, she could not say. But she finally got to that drainage ditch, where she found herself presently.

On every birthday that Alliyah could remember for her fifteen-going-on-sixteen years of life, after the presents and after the cake, her mom and her dad always brought her out here to this very drainage ditch, and told her the exact same thing.

_“If anything should happen to us, come here, to this spot, and start digging. Everything you need is just a couple of feet down.” _

And now, a couple of feet of digging later, she found a small metal box.

Aalyiah lugged it out of the dirt, and threw the metal lid off to the side of her, where it landed with a clang.

Inside was a brick of hundred dollar bills secured with a white paper band, what appeared in this light to be a switchblade knife…

...and a note.

Aaliyah reached down, and lifted the folded piece of white paper with her dirty, bloody hand.

She opened the note, and even under this negligible moonlight, she could still see a single line, written in her mother’s inimitable flowery script.

_"Find Bruce Wayne. He will protect you.”_


	2. Trinity

**Chapter 2: Trinity**

Raymond deMatteo, along with his friends and associates Harold Ferretti and Paul Ransone, liked to consider themselves smart.

They were mob guys, doing jobs that needed doing under current Falcone mob boss Sofia Gigante. Their fathers were mob guys as well, but they served in the now defunct Maroni Family. Their dads weren’t in the Maronis by blood, which enabled them to be absorbed into the Falcones, though granted they were treated as second-class citizens as they did so.

In fact, there were still a number of Falcone capos who were around in the old days during the brief, one-sided mob war that wiped the Maronis out and sent Salvatore Maroni to prison, so even Raymond, Harold, and Paul still got the stink-eye their dads got.

Raymond, Harold, and Paul grew resentful of their shabby treatment by the Falcone organization. Then Raymond, a few months back, hit upon an idea.

They’d rob a bank. Clean the place out. And with the money they scored, they’d start their own crew, their own family.

Again, it must be mentioned, these three men liked to consider themselves smart.

Their first move was to hijack a Greyhound bus from the station on Bleake Island. A ton of money means you need a ton of room to put all the cash in, right? They snuck in, found an empty bus (one of those new Kord models, the ones with the electric engine optimized to run faster than the old ones powered by gasoline), shot out the security cameras, disengaged the tracking protocols, and drove it out with no one chasing them or an alarm being raised.

They took it to one of the Falcone junkyards, paid off the guy who ran it, and outfitted it with armor plating that they welded on to the side. It wasn’t like, plating that they _bought _, it was junkyard scrap, but still, it could stop a bullet from a police-issued .38.

Tonight was the night. They rolled the Bus-dozer (Raymond named it) up to the back of the bank, shot two security guards, held the rest up, got all the cash, shot a teller in the foot for trying to sneak in a dye-pack, and got out before the cops showed up.

The whole operation took three minutes.

As the cops were chasing them, with Harold at the wheel of the Bus-dozer, Raymond sat on the floor of the vehicle and stared at the six huge duffel bags of cash in the back.

He felt invincible. It wasn’t like his dad’s day, when hoods like him would have to watch their every step lest some asshole dressed as a Bat came down from the sky and started beating on them until they forgot what city they were in.

What did Gotham have nowadays? The _Signal? _ They guy who gave interviews to magazines and told kids to stay in school? Raymond felt he must be forgiven for the complete lack of fear he felt at The Signal’s name.

And yeah, sure, there were some rumblings that Batman was still around, but keeping a lower profile, and yeah there were some guys who were busted that swore through broken teeth and split lips that it was The Bat who got them, but Raymond deMatteo looked at these stories the same way he looked at accounts of alien abduction: there was some weird shit out there, but in all likelihood, there was a rational explanation for everything.

_Again… _it must be reiterated… these guys liked to consider themselves _smart._

* * *

They’d hooked up cameras to the back and sides of the Bus-dozer to make up for the fact that armor plating covered up the windows and where the side mirrors should be. The cameras fed into three old CRT televisions that they’d found in the junkyard along with the scrap they’d needed to make the Bus-dozer, well, the _Bus-dozer._

Harold looked down at the central monitor and saw that the four GCPD squad cars that had been chasing them since the bank had started getting smaller and smaller as they made their way across the bridge.

He called back to Raymond and Paul. “Guys! They’re backing off!”

Harold then heard a loud roar, like a jet engine, right next to him.

And as he looked out the Bus-dozer’s driver’s side window, he saw what it meant when the GCPD backed off.

It was a vision in white, upon a glider powered by high-tech engines, like a flying motorcycle with no wheels. A white cape fluttered behind someone whose clingy white costume revealed that they were female. On the hands that clutched the glider’s handlebars were a pair of white, oversized gauntlets, like hockey gloves with spikes. And on her head was a giant helmet that looked like a feline of Hell with its ears drawn back.

There were only two splashes of color on this woman’s costume.

The hot pink X over the mouth of the helmet…

...and those horrible, glowing red eyes.

Harold hadn’t even bothered looking at the bridge in front of him for a couple of seconds.

He spoke. Not loud, not to warn Raymond or Paul. It was to himself. Saying the name of this creature made it real, and this creature being real meant he wasn’t hallucinating.

“Mother Panic…”

* * *

The Signal and his motorcycle were still in stealth mode, invisible, weaving around the unlucky cars that were on the bridge connecting Founders Island to Bleake. All they could see was a vague light distortion, and that’s only if they were looking closely.

He made his way around a green Honda before settling on the right side of the Bus-dozer, hit the logo on his chest, and came out of stealth mode.

What was revealed was a yellow motorcycle upon which sat a black man in yellow and black leather and kevlar armor. The black and yellow helmet (with white eye slits) could stop a .44 Magnum bullet at point blank range.

And upon his chest, in gleaming iridescent white, was a dot with three curved lines hovering over it.

The symbol for wi-fi.

He was _“The Signal,” _after all.

The Signal pressed the second of the curved lines on his chest, and decided to introduce himself.

* * *

The blast of static from the CRT televisions in the front of the Bus-dozer’s interior was so loud that Raymond felt it in his teeth.

_“Gentlemen,” _said a voice coming from the television speakers. _“I’m the Signal… and I do believe my friend wants you to pull over.”_

The Bus-dozer swerved to the left, not of the accord of its driver Harold, who almost had the wheel yanked out of his hands.

There was an ungodly screeching coming from the left of the Bus-dozer. Raymond and Paul crowded next to Harold, the three of them looking out of the tiny window to see what was going on.

Mother Panic, hovering on her glider, was yanking the welded steel armor off the side of the vehicle.

With just one hand.

* * *

The Signal heard the screeching as well. And he saw roughly six feet of steel, curled like a cheese doodle, hit the concrete, bringing up sparks.

He took the time to say _“Jesus, Violet…” _to himself before he got on comms.

“MP, would you mind not doing that?”

Mother Panic’s voice sounded in his ear.

“What, Duke, you think I’m gonna kill these guys?”

“It’s not those guys I’m worried about,” The Signal said. “It’s everyone else on the road. And no real names over comms.”

“Anyone listening wouldn’t have known it was your real name until you came out and admitted it just now.”

The Signal was about to say something, but Cassandra Wayne’s voice cut him off.

“ETA?” she asked.

“About a quarter-mile from Exit Twelve.”

“Good,” Cassandra said. “Keep your distance, but just a little. When what happens happens, if these idiots panic and slam on the brakes, I don’t want anyone getting hurt, up to and including the two of you.”

* * *

“They’re slowing down,” Harold said.

Raymond’s breath came out of his mouth as though it had squeezed out of him.

“Good,” he said.

Paul (who actually was the smartest of these three, as he’d come up with logistics for the heist) just turned and glared at Raymond.

“No,” Paul said, _“not _good. If the cops slowed down for the capes, then why are the capes slowing down? Is there something worse coming?”

As if in reply to Paul’s question, a hulking mass of black metal had begun to materialize from thin air a few hundred feet away.

And a thundering **BOOOOOOOOM! **shook the night itself.

* * *

A fourteen-year-old girl was in the cockpit of the Batwing.

Upon Cassandra’s orders, she pressed the buttons that disabled the Batwing’s stealth capabilities. It visibly decloaked, and the sound dampeners that hid the noise of its engines and thrusters deactivated, letting out a rush of heat and energy that sounded like a dangerously close thunder-clap.

She just imagined what it looked like to the dunces in that bus. Like a metal demon clawed through the thin membrane separating planes of reality, cutting a loud fart as it did so.

But the Bus-dozer didn’t seem to be slowing down.

“Come on,” the girl said, her green-gloved finger hovering over the button on the cockpit’s display that would fire an EMP charge that would lock the Bus-dozer’s brakes, sending it to a skidding halt.

The girl’s wardrobe was what she herself called _“retro,” _and it was, though in design and not materials. A red vest, green scaled briefs, a yellow cape, and actual honest-to-God green pixie boots, though this young lady preferred tights that matched her skin tone, as opposed to going out bare-legged.

In fact, the only change to her predecessor’s style from almost thirty years ago was about her face. Gone was the black domino mask, and in its place was a pair of green-tinted glasses with black rims.

This girl’s name was Carrie Kelley.

And she was the fourth Robin.

* * *

Harold Ferretti had a choice to make.

In front of him, and getting closer, was the plane that belonged to The Bat. It had seemingly appeared out of pure nothing.

Right next to that plane, however, was the Exit Twelve offramp that led to Bleake Island.

This choice was no choice at all.

Harold yanked the wheel to the left.

Bleake Island it was.

* * *

The Signal’s motorcycle and Mother Panic’s glider were about three car-lengths behind the Bus-dozer as it got off at the exit.

Cassandra’s voice in Duke’s ear again.

“Follow them until they stop,” Cassandra said. “Then fall back.”

“We can take them,” Mother Panic said over the radio. “You know that, right?”

“I’m not letting you have all the fun,” Cassandra said. “Black Bat out.”

* * *

She stood atop the long dormant smokestack of the Musgrove Steelworks, looking down, hundreds of feet below, to the Bus-dozer pulling into the empty parking lot of a warehouse whose name had been long since forgotten.

The three robbers exited the vehicle, assault rifles in hand, ready to go to war with the two superheroes who had been chasing them.

And, true to her instructions, The Signal and Mother Panic backed off.

Not much had changed about the costume she wore. It was still shiny, skin-tight spidersilk treated with Shear thickening comploud, but that was beneath another layer of armor plating. A network of plates made of what Luke Fox over at WayneTech called _“Fluid Titanium:” _a solid plate that lapsed into liquid when it absorbed a high-velocity shock (like a shot from an anti-materiel rifle, for instance) before solidifying once again. It allowed her to absorb the next best thing to tank rounds and not only cheat death, but cheat getting knocked down. And she didn’t have to sacrifice a lick of her considerable speed to do it.

She still kept her old Batgirl mask, though. The black one with the stitching over the nose that made her look like something Goth farmers would put in their fields to scare birds away.

Cassandra thought it was cool.

As was the black Bat symbol on her chest, outlined in yellow.

And Cassandra was going by the codename _“Black Bat” _these days because…

Raymond, Paul, and Harold, convinced that no one with a badge or a costume was coming after them, went back into the Bus-dozer. They came out with two massive bags of cash apiece, and started making their way to the old and massive wooden doors of the warehouse.

The Fluid Titanium wasn’t the only improvement to her armor. What was going to come in handy for Black Bat in the present moment was the integration of Oracle’s sound dampening technology. Any noise she would make would be muted, and the resulting kinetic energy would be stored in her boots and gauntlets. When released, that kinetic energy would lend considerable power to any punch or kick she might throw.

So when Black Bat spread out her cape, glided down to street-level, and landed five feet behind the three bank robbers, kicking up gravel as she did, they did not hear any of it.

“Is it locked?” Raymond asked, oblivious of what just landed behind them.

“It’s not _locked,” _Paul said, “it’s just friggin’ _heavy.”_

Raymond, Paul, and Harold finally got the doors to the warehouse open, picked up their bags of cash, and entered.

Black Bat, still five feet behind them, held her hands behind her back, and started skipping after them like a little girl.

It wasn’t like they could hear her.

And she thought it was funny.

Paul started lagging behind.

_Perfect…_

Black Bat closed the distance, kicked him in the back of his right knee to bring him down to her level, and locked him in a blood choke. Paul tried to scream, attempted to thrash, dropping his bags of money as he did so.

But because he was in Black Bat’s sound dampening field, neither Raymond nor Harold heard a thing.

Once he was out, Black Bat dragged Paul off to the side of an old, empty shipping container, out of sight.

Black Bat had almost finished tying Paul up when she heard Raymond and Harold start talking to each other.

“Where’d Paul go?”

“What?”

“Where’d he go?”

“I dunno. Maybe he went to look for the john.”

“And he left the cash behind?”

“You’re takin’ a leak, you wanna bring in two huge duffel bags of cash with you?”

“That amount of money, yeah I do.”

“You don’t know if the floors are covered in shit and piss or not. And this place is abandoned, so it’ll be _old _shit and piss. That amount of money, no I don’t.”

Black Bat used a two-way grapnel cord to suspend the bound and unconscious Paul Ransone from the ceiling. They were going to come this way to look for him anyway, so she figured she’d let them find him in the worst way possible.

Raymond and Harold got their phones out, and used the lights to look around. This just made Black Bat’s job easier. If they were just in the dark, they were looking for everything. The use of handheld light meant that they were looking in the direction of the beam, and _only _in the direction of the beam.

Black Bat made her way through the labyrinth of old shipping containers to get behind them…

...just in time for them to discover what had happened to their friend.

“GAAAAH!”

“Holy shit…”

“PAUL, WHAT THE FUCK?”

Black Bat had to move fast. She was right behind Harold, but taking him meant that he’d drop his light. And, looking in the opposite direction or no, Raymond would know something had happened.

She wrapped her arms around Harold’s midsection and swiftly dragged him back behind a shipping container. The sound dampeners ensured silence, but he did drop one of the bags of cash, and his phone.

Which meant the light shifted, and Raymond whipped around to see what happened, only to see one bag of cash, a dropped phone, and nothing else.

Black Bat delivered a hard, silent elbow into the left side of Harold’s face, rendering him unconscious.

Raymond did not come around the corner to look for his fallen compatriot.

They never did.

He was in a heist movie five minutes ago, a mystery one minute ago, and now he was in a horror movie. And normal people in scenarios like this did not go looking for danger. It was possible for fear to override both fight and flight, and turn cowardly and superstitious souls into statues.

Black Bat opened the duffel bag of cash that she had dragged behind the shipping container along with Harold. She removed three bundles of cash, worth ten grand each.

As she made her way back around to get behind Raymond, she threw one of the bundles of cash over the shipping container behind which she was moving.

She tried to throw it in front of him, but judging from the loud smack she heard, it hit him in the head.

Raymond grunted and, over the web of shipping containers, Black Bat could see the light from his phone whipping to the corners of the room while he himself still stood rooted to the spot.

Behind another container, she threw the second bundle over. There was a satisfying splat of cash hitting concrete.

“Harold,” Raymond said. “If this is your way of getting both our shares, I swear to _Christ!”_

It was now, Black Bat reckoned, that the pleasantries of initial acquaintance should be observed.

She relieved a Batarang from her yellow utility belt, stabbed it into the heart of the third and final bundle of cash, and threw it was she dove behind another container for cover.

Another splat of cash on concrete.

And a long silence.

_“No…” _he said.

Black Bat was behind him, now. She could read his body language, she could divine what he was going to do before he did it.

Again, she would have to be fast.

“You ain’t The Bat,” Raymond said. “I dunno who was flying that plane, but it sure as shit wasn’t Batman.”

Black Bat maneuvered herself in between two relatively close containers. She silently bounded off of one, stuck out her leg for the other, and found herself in a truncated splits between the two. This way she looked nine feet tall instead of her usual five-seven-in-Bat-ears.

“Batman’s _missing,” _Raymond said. “Batman’s _dead. _ You ain’t him. YOU HEAR ME?”

She touched a button on the right wrist of her gauntlets, turning off her sound dampeners, and transferring the stored kinetic energy to the index finger of her right hand.

“There’s… There’s a perfectly rational explanation for this.”

Black Bat turned on the speaker function on her utility belt with her left hand. Her left index finger hovered over a button on the buckle.

“There… is… a perfect--”

And that’s when he turned around, shining his light on the impossibly tall Black Bat.

She pressed the button.

A few years ago, Cassandra Wayne had spent an afternoon inside Batcave South beneath Wayne Manor recording the sounds of the screeching bats that lived there.

And that was the noise that Raymond heard when his light shined upon her. 

** _“REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”_ **

It was at such a deafening level that she wasn’t entirely sure Raymond deMatteo could hear himself scream.

But scream he did.

And he dropped his phone, leaving both of them in darkness.

Black Bat dropped from her perched position to the concrete. She liberated her grapnel gun from her utility belt with her left hand, and activated the night vision function on her mask with the pinky of her right.

She fired the grapnel gun, and the hook embedded itself in Raymond deMatteo’s right shoulder. She pressed the button on the side, and the gun started reeling him in at such a rate that he was knocked off of his feet.

After the squirming Raymond made it all the way over to her, Black Bat knelt down, and used her right index finger…

...the one with all of the kinetic energy from all of her exertions stored within... 

...to lightly graze his temple.

Given how hard Black Bat could hit someone if she wanted to, that force, plus the kinetic energy, most likely would have killed him.

So a light graze would have to do. Whenever Oracle punched someone with the kinetic energy she stored in her hand-silenced gloves, she called it a _“Hadouken.” _ This was decidedly not that. More of a _“Ha-Boop-Ken.”_

But it did the job. Raymond deMatteo twitched violently, and was still.

Black Bat turned off the screeching coming from her utility belt. Paul was already gift-wrapped for GCPD, which meant that Harold and Raymond would need to be bound as well. That would take just a minute or two.

And she got her Batarang out of that bundle of cash as well.

* * *

Black Bat, The Signal, and Mother Panic convened on the roof of the Musgrove Steelworks, which provided them good seats to watch the GCPD cuff the three bank robbers, collect all the cash they stole, and take the Bus-dozer to the impound lot. They made a point to watch the GCPD do their jobs on nights like this. Just in case they needed back up if the crooks they were putting away had any ideas toward escaping. They never did, but being careful wasn’t the worst thing in the world to be.

“You use the bat screeching?” The Signal asked.

“Yeah,” said Black Bat.

“Any of ‘em shit themselves like that one guy did?” Mother Panic asked.

“I couldn’t tell. It was over quickly.”

Violet Paige giggled inside her helmet.

“That one’s still funny,” Mother Panic said. “It was in the middle of the summer. Dude was wearing shorts.”

The three looked to their left as the thick sound of a grapnel hook embedding itself into brick snuck its way into the auditory landscape. One reeling whine later, and Carrie Kelley was on the roof, her Robin costume in the gym bag slung over one shoulder of her black leather jacket.

“I need a ride home,” Carrie said.

“What do you mean you need a ride home?” Black Bat asked. “How did you get here?”

“I was on Bleake Island anyway,” Carrie said. “Studying with Gina Templeton for our English test. I just booked it to an abandoned factory, and called in the Batwing.”

“Did you send the Batwing back to Batcave South?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

“Still need a ride home, though.”

“Why didn’t you have the Batwing just drop you off at home?” Mother Panic asked.

“I had it running in stealth long enough as it was,” Carrie said. “It needed to recharge. And I can’t just have the Batwing show up in the East End and drop me off. Secret identities are supposed to be _secret, _right? How am I gonna explain to my parents that billions of dollars worth of experimental WayneTech just dropped me off on the street?”

“Says the girl who used her grapnel gun to get on a roof in civilian clothes,” The Signal said.

The hue of red Carrie turned, visible in the evening, told the three superheroes in attendance that she hadn’t thought of that.

“Shit,” she said.

“Hey,” Mother Panic said. “No fucking swearing. It’s a horrible fucking habit that follows you the rest of your fucking life.”

Black Bat sighed. She brought up the holographic display on her gauntlet and started scrolling through her contacts.

“Please don’t call your driver,” Carrie said.

“I’m calling my driver.”

Carrie moaned dramatically.

“Oh, come _oooooooooon,” _she said. “That guy _suuuuuuuuuucks.”_

* * *

Black Bat ducked into the top floor of the Musgrove Steelworks, and changed back into her civilian clothes.

Then Cassandra Wayne met Carrie Kelley back on street level, and there they waited for Cassandra’s driver.

It was fifteen minutes before a dark blue electric Bentley pulled up to the curb to meet them. From the driver’s side stepped a rather handsome fellow, whose marginal graying at the temples of his black hair was the sole indicator that he was in his mid-thirties. He was rail thin, but carried himself as though he were much bulkier. He was wearing a navy blue suit with a light blue shirt. No tie this evening.

And his blue eyes were, at the moment, not the happiest.

Cassandra opened her mouth to speak, but the driver silenced her with one upraised finger.

_“‘I’ll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,’” _the driver said.

Cassandra rolled her eyes. _“‘And whiles I live to account this world, but Hell.’”_

The driver held up a second finger.

_“‘Upon the king. That is our lives, our souls, our debts…”_

Cassandra picked up the rest of the line. _ “‘...our careful wives, our children, and our sins lay upon the king.’”_

The driver held up a third finger.

_“‘The noble Brutus hath told you Caesar was ambitious.’”_

_“‘If it were so,’” _Cassandra said, _“‘it was a grievous fault, and grievously hath Caesar answered it.’”_

The driver dropped his hand.

“I don’t do cape shit,” he said.

“This isn’t cape shit.”

“I’m driving your sidekick home,” the driver said. “That’s cape shit.”

“You do know I’m standing here, right?” Carrie asked.

The driver looked at her, and said “I’ve actually been trying to forget.”

“You’re driving a fourteen-year-old girl home on a Friday night,” Cassandra said. “You’re not above escorting a young lady home in a dangerous city, are you Jason?”

* * *

The morning after the Battle of Founders Island fifteen years ago, the GCPD had picked up a most unusual young man with a most unusual story.

He said his name was Jason Todd, former ward of Bruce Wayne. But that couldn’t be right. His fingerprints didn’t match the ones on record for Jason Todd, for one. The DNA didn’t match for another. Both came up with the same John Doe.

And then there was the pesky detail that Jason Todd had died six years earlier in a car accident. His body had been interred in the mausoleum on the grounds of Wayne Manor.

The truth of the matter was a great deal more complicated.

Harmonia, Greek Goddess of Harmony and Concord, had set to destroying the Multiverse. The tool she needed to perform such a feat led her to Gotham City, which gave Harmonia pause. Goddess or not, going toe-to-toe with Batman and the considerable array of superheroic talent within Gotham City would no doubt result in her defeat.

She needed an advantage. She broke into the Fifth Dimension, and used the energy she found there to create two minions that would help her achieve her goal.

One of these energy constructs was many versions of one person from across the Multiverse, condensed into one body. An odious and violent creature that called itself _“Damian Wayne.”_

The other was the version of Jason Todd that found itself in the GCPD lockup the day after the Battle of Founders Island. He had the memories of being the second Robin, and he had the memories of being murdered by The Joker. He was even as old as the _“real” _Jason Todd, had he lived.

For all intents and purposes, this Fifth Dimensional construct _was _Jason Todd. He aged, needed to eat, needed to sleep, and picked his nose when people weren’t looking. Not so much resurrected as rebuilt from scratch.

But there were hurdles to accepting the name after Harmonia was defeated, not the least of which was answering for what Harmonia (and later Nemesis, who had inhabited Harmonia’s body) made him do.

Jason Todd, in his one and only stint as an insane Goddess’ henchman, was responsible for the deaths of eighteen people. Eleven of those, including Jonathan _“Scarecrow” _Crane, he was rather proud of.

But the other seven were the innocent patrons of the Seahorse Tavern, and Nemesis had mentally tortured him to get him to do so. Jason had even said as such, upon being questioned by the GCPD. During his competency hearing, none other than Wonder Woman herself testified on his behalf that yes, Nemesis did have the ability to control minds such as Jason’s.

Jason, after the fact, was more than sure that Bruce Wayne himself had put Diana up to it.

So, having been cleared of the seven murders that GCPD could pin on him (with precious little evidence for the other eleven on hand), the Fifth Dimensional reconstruction of Jason Todd spent the next two years inside the walls of Arkham Asylum, as opposed to the rest of his life in Blackgate Penitentiary.

The Asylum was a far different place from when Jason had been Robin. There was a renewal of purpose, a focus on actual rehabilitation, as opposed to the mere jailing and stewardship of the mentally ill.

When Jason’s two years were up, however, he needed a job and a place to live.

Enter Bruce Wayne.

For Cassandra Cain, currently undergoing proceedings that would name her as Bruce Wayne’s legally adopted daughter, needed someone to drive her around the city, as she could not drive herself.

Mere months after Game Seven, Kate Kane disappeared from Gotham City. However there were legally binding documents in place stating, in the event of her prolonged absence, the RH Kane apartment building in which she dwelt, was to be left to Cassandra. Cass, and then Jason, would be the only inhabitants.

Jason accepted the job on two conditions.

The first was that he would not, at any time, come into contact with Bruce Wayne himself, for he still blamed Bruce for his death at the hands of The Joker. To put it bluntly, Jason hated the man.

The second was that he would, in no way, immerse himself in the superhero lifestyle ever again. This being the _“No Cape Shit” _rule.

For Jason had taken a strict vow of nonviolence upon his arrest after the Battle of Founders Island. He would not fight crime alongside Batman, nor would he be the crime Batman fought. He simply refused to give Bruce either satisfaction.

But there was another reason he accepted the job.

On the night of the Battle of Founders Island, Jason had been so distraught about the seven lives he’d taken under duress at the Seahorse Tavern that he had plotted to blow himself up with one of the explosive devices that he had procured in Harmonia’s mad crusade to destroy the Multiverse. At the time he expected Tim Drake, the then-current Robin, to stop him. Whereupon Jason would make one final plea for Tim to give up the superhero life and do something else with what time he had left on Earth.

But Tim Drake never showed up.

Cassandra Cain did.

They had a conversation, during which beer was drunk, where Cassandra convinced Jason not to destroy himself. This was no easy feat for a young lady who, at that time, could barely talk.

The truth was that he respected some of the people in Batman’s network. Barbara Gordon and Harper Row were intelligent and innovative, and he respected them for that. Tim Drake hung up the tights for good, making him the only Robin who ever retired (as opposed to being fired or killed in the line of duty), and Jason respected him for that. While he was in Arkham, Stephanie Brown had apparently dropped her asshole mass-murdering dad off of a roof to his death, and you best believe Jason respected the _hell _out of her for that, even though she fucked off from Gotham City immediately afterward and hadn’t been seen in the fourteen years since.

But Cassandra Cain? Cassandra was the only superhero that Jason Todd actually _liked._

And when Bruce Wayne retired as Batman and named Cassandra as his replacement instead of Tim or original Robin Dick Grayson, Jason had to admit it was the best idea that the egomaniacal bastard ever had.

Jason had had the job as Cassandra’s driver for a week when he noticed the girl lugging around a massive paperback book containing the complete works of William Shakespeare, in spite of the fact that she could not read it.

And Jason… didn’t have anything better to do that day.

So Jason opened the book to the first play, _Titus Andronicus, _and started reading it to her.

He had no idea what the hell any of it meant. So they both got up, went to the computer in his apartment, and started looking up the meaning. So the process continued, the two of them reading Shakespeare, and then trying to find sites that translated it into plain English.

By the time she was twenty-five, despite the fact that she had started reading at a prohibitively late age, and despite the fact that she had dyslexia on top of that, Cassandra Wayne had had the complete works of William Shakespeare completely memorized.

With Jason Todd’s help.

It should be noted at this juncture that, as he was henching for Harmonia, Jason Todd was given a set of forged documents by the assassin David Cain, who was Cassandra’s father.

The name on those documents was Herbert Janson.

That was the name under which Jason had been admitted to Arkham.

That was the name that was, to this very day, on his driver’s license.

That was the name with which he filed his taxes.

And when Cassandra Wayne won awards for her acting, that was the name with which she thanked him.

* * *

Jason groaned, and looked at Carrie.

“You touch the stereo, you die.”

Carrie groaned back. “You’re a pacifist, you douche.”

“I can still hire people.”

Carrie rolled her eyes, picked up her gym bag, and got in the Bentley.

Jason looked back at Cassandra. “That thing you’re having me do tomorrow is… It’s on the line.”

“The Robin Summit?” Cassandra asked.

“Don’t call it that.”

“Carrie’s been Robin for four months,” Cassandra said. “She needs advice. From Dick, from Tim, and from you.”

“She knows my advice,” Jason said. “Take off the cape and take up cabinetry.”

“Gotham needs idealists to protect it.”

“And I need a cabinet.”

Cassandra smiled.

“I’m surprised Dick agreed to this,” Jason said. “Shit, I’m surprised Dick’s even _talking _to you.”

Cassandra’s smile went away. An ice cube started forming in her stomach.

“Dick should be surprised I’m talking to _him,” _she said. “But some things are bigger than beef.”

Jason shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, I’ll do it, but… _Jesus… _You need a ride, too?”

To this day, Cassandra Wayne could not drive a conventional car. _“Conventional _” being the operative word in this instance, as she could flawlessly drive the Batmobile. And pilot the Batwing. She could even pilot the BatSub, even though she’d never needed to use the damned thing.

“No,” Cassandra said. “I made it over here on my motorcycle. Suited up in the building.”

Jason nodded. “Any plans tonight after your big show? _Please _tell me you’re not bringing Violet over.”

Cassandra coated her thick voice in reassurance when she said “Violet is _not _coming over.”

“Good,” Jason said. “‘Cause she’s uh… She’s mean.”

Carrie, who had rolled the window down on the Bentley, stuck her head out.

“You calling someone mean is like Jeffery Dahmer saying someone has dietary issues.”

Jason looked back at Carrie with a glare in his eye. “Carrie, so help me Jesus, if you touched the levels on that stereo.”

“Ugh,” Carrie said, rolling her eyes and wiping a lock of her short red hair off of her freckled face. “You two never let me have any fun.”

Jason’s glare got more intense.

“Little bitch, we taught you how to fly a _plane!”_

Carrie sneered at him, before ducking back into the Bentley.

“Kids these days.”

_“‘We’ _taught her?” Cassandra asked. “You didn’t do _shit.”_

* * *

Gotham’s a little on the quiet side now.

It didn’t use to be this way. Years ago Gotham City thrummed with life at all hours. But since Game Seven, fear had been put into Gotham City. The kind that had almost nothing to do with Batman.

It happened gradually over the fourteen year since, but now Gotham got quieter at night. The kind of quiet old country Eastern European villages got as night descended. The kind of quiet tinged with a fear of vampires or mamunes.

It was a fear of something bigger. That their city had been eyeballed with malicious intent, and it was out there in the dark. Waiting… and waiting… and waiting.

Take what’s happening right now, for instance.

Back in the old noisy days, one would probably have heard Mother Panic’s glider sailing over the hipster tenements and vegan co-ops of Burnside on the mainland. It was a noisy thing, after all, and Violet Paige liked people knowing she was coming.

In those piping evenings of old, one may have heard the high screech of something being fired off from an old office building that was coming up for auction next week.

One would have heard the truncated, chunky **BOOM! **of a small, short-range surface-to-air missile making contact with one of the thrusters on that glider, that’s for damn sure.

But tonight? On one of the many muffled, reserved nights of Gotham City’s new era?

Only on a night like tonight could you have heard Mother Panic scream as she plummeted to Earth.


	3. And Special Guest Star Natalie Venora

**Chapter 3: And Special Guest Star Natalie Venora**

**THE AMANDA WALLER BUILDING - WASHINGTON DC**

ARGUS.

Operating under different acronyms since its inception during the logy middle days of the American Revolution, ARGUS has long been the most mysterious of the so-called _“Alphabet Agencies” _that infest Washington DC. There are, in fact, agents within the CIA holding top level clearance that will tell you with a straight face that ARGUS does not exist.

The DEO does not have this level of of byzantine secrecy, nor does SHADE come larded with such cloak-and-dagger bullshit. And those two organizations are directed by an evil skeleton and Frankenstein’s Monster, respectively.

ARGUS’ official purpose (provided one could find someone with clearance below rank Epsilon that could tell you it existed) is to augment and assist the American metahuman population in their attempts to protect and defend American interests at home and abroad.

The Justice League needs backup? ARGUS is the agency that comes running.

For a period of twenty-seven years, ARGUS was under the tight fist and steely glare of Director Amanda Waller. She was the one responsible for the Task Force X initiative (more commonly known among the superhero set as _“The Suicide Squad”), _which _“enlisted” _the aid of supercriminals to perform top secret black ops for Uncle Sam in exchange for reductions in their prison sentences. Her approaches veered from subtlety to Scorched Earth.

Was Amanda Waller responsible for covert ops that snuck people into and out of hostile countries without the governments of said countries being any the wiser? Why, yes she was.

But was Amanda Waller in the Oval Office on the night of the Battle of Founders Island, advising the President to use nuclear weapons on Gotham City to contain the Army of Nemesis? Why, yes she was.

Waller’s directorship of ARGUS came to an unceremonious end seven years ago, when news of some of the more top secret research the agency was undertaking reached the desk of the Secretary of State. Precious few know the extent or the aims of said research, but two rumors around Capitol Hill have spread in the years since to such a degree that they have become accepted as gospel truth:

The first is that it had something to do with the so-called _“Meta-Gene.”_

The second is that some of the test subjects removed from blacksite labs across the country were as young as seven years old.

Waller was given an ultimatum by the President of the United States himself: Resign, and you won’t go to prison. Hell, they’d have even named the building from which ARGUS operated after her if she went quietly.

She did, indeed, go quietly. Former Director Waller died two years ago of pancreatic cancer.

Tonight, however, on the top floor of the nondescript fifteen story building that bore the late former director’s name, one ARGUS agent walked down a long, white hallway.

The ARGUS agent appeared to be in his early thirties. He was broadly built and openly handsome, with a square jaw and thick black hair that was combed back. His black loafers clacked on the tile, as he checked the pockets of the blue blazer he held over his right forearm for breath mints.

He was out.

The ARGUS agent came to a stop at the end of the hallway, and regarded the nameplate on the cheap wooden door before he knocked.

_Director  
-Iman Avesta-_

_  
_ _Knock-knock-knock…_

“Come in,” said a woman beyond the door, and the ARGUS agent did so.

Directors of ARGUS do not get windows in their offices, nor are said offices spacious. The room was cramped, the only light coming one forty watt bulb above them.

Sitting behind the cheap steel desk was a beautiful woman in her mid-thirties with tan skin, brown hair, green eyes, and cheekbones sharp enough to cut stale cheddar. A gray business suit wrapped around her slim frame and at first glance, one would wonder why her earrings had lights in them. Then one would realize that those were not earrings, but hearing aids. Without them, ARGUS Director Iman Avesta was completely deaf.

“Have a seat,” Iman said. The ARGUS agent did that as well, after he folded his blazer over the back of the seat. He hated the chair in this office. His shoulders were too broad for the back. It was like riding in an airplane seat, and the ARGUS agent had great fortune in having little use for airplanes and the seats contained therein.

Iman appraised him for a moment--just a moment--in a way that was not entirely professional.

And the ARGUS agent caught it.

She had made a pass at him about seven months ago. It was not some torrid office romance. Liasons in this line of work never were. At the time, Iman Avesta had been afflicted with the trio of diseases that struck many who toiled in cramped dingy offices in cramped, dingy buildings in Washington DC: She was tired, she was bored, and she was lonely.

Iman had been so needy while trying not to _look _needy that he almost took her up on it. Hell, if she could be attracted to him under the crummy fluorescent lights in the Amanda Waller building, then that was the sweetest compliment he’d had in a while.

Lo, the moment passed, and it was down to business.

“Tell me what you know,” Iman said, “about Kaznia.”

The ARGUS agent shrugged. “Tiny country in the Balkans. Monarchy. Top exports include really small cars, video displays, and sexually explicit horror movies that they keep trying to pass off as high art.”

“Geopolitically,” Iman said.

“Geopolitically?” the ARGUS agent asked. “It’s like if _Hungry Hungry Hippos _was a country. Usually when you think _‘Civil War,’ _you think of one side against another, but _Kaznia? _ Throughout the past fifty years, there have been no fewer than four factions vying for control of the country, and as many as eight. How many we up to now?”

“Five,” Iman said. “But the UN only recognizes four.”

“Well, there we go.”

“It’s one of those factions that concerns us greatly,” Iman said.

“How so?”

“Duke Arkosh Kobash,” Iman said. “Rousing the peasantry on a populist wave. Mouthpieces for Queen Audrey are calling it _‘The Rich Man’s Revolution,’ _and with good cause. Duke Kobash is the wealthiest individual in Kaznia outside of the monarchy itself. And he’s looking to add even more cushion to his bank account by taking the crown.”

“What is it about our dear friend the Duke that has ARGUS worried?”

“He’s not just looking to _rouse _the rabble,” Iman said, “he’s looking to _arm _them.”

“That’s insane,” the ARGUS agent said. “Kaznia is _in _the UN. If Kobash starts shit--”

Iman raised her hand to still him. “I have it on good authority that the Justice League wants to send a diplomatic delegation to Kaznia to try and talk things down. They’re even sending the big three. The Trinity.”

The ARGUS agent nodded. Back in the old days, the “Trinity” of the Justice League were Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. But times and rosters change. Now the big three were Wonder Woman, Black Canary, and Nightwing. That their proper names were Diana of Themyscira, Dinah Lance-Choi, and Dick Grayson was all the reason for their fellow Leaguers to call them _“Team 3-D.”_

“Hell of a time for an assassination attempt,” Iman said. “And something that big requires a weapon that can take all three of them out in optimum, heavily secure conditions. Something experimental. And that’s where we come in.”

“You have a line on a weapon that can do this?”

“Yes,” Iman said. “Not a gun. A _bullet. _ Or to be more specific... a Shadow Density bullet.”

The ARGUS agent didn’t want to see the look on his own face, which he knew was one of childish surprise. Not precisely fitting for someone who needed to look older to operate.

“You’re telling me Kobash wants to start his own Game Seven inside the Kaznian Royal Palace?”

“One bullet,” Iman said. “Which can be fired from anything that can shoot fifty cal. My line says it was developed by a scientist who lost his job when LexCorp went got bought out. Only the core of the bullet is Shadow Density gel, but that’s bad enough. My line also has the name of a buyer.”

“Who?” the ARGUS agent asked.

Iman took a file from her desk drawer and handed it to him. He opened it, and saw a picture of a pudgy bald man with the kind of proud porn star moustache that only eastern Europe could produce.

The ARGUS agent read the name on the top sheet. “Alexej Maturska. Isn’t he--”

“Diplomatic envoy to the United States?” Iman asked. “Why yes he is.”

“And he’s buying? He’s not sending a proxy, _he’s _buying?”

“He’s in the pocket of Duke Kobash. Kobash is royalty, and after a few centuries of inbreeding, no one’s that smart. I hate to quote old TV shows, but your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to stop the buy from going down.”

The ARGUS agent set the file down on Iman’s desk.

“Where’s the buy taking place?” he asked.

Iman allowed herself a shadow of a smile, and said “Gotham City.”

The ARGUS agent almost felt himself hollow out.

“Unless I’m mistaken,” Iman said, “you have an in in Gotham City… Don’t you, Agent Kent?”

The ARGUS agent sighed.

A year after the birth of his twins, Jon and Lara Lane-Kent, Clark Kent called Conner Kent to his farm in Hamilton County, eighty miles outside the city limits of Metropolis.

There, he told Conner that, what with he being Superman, Lois Lane did not have the energy or the capability to raise two half-Kryptonian babies by herself for long periods of time.

Put simply, the world needed Superman, but it could not have Clark Kent. His retirement from superheroism was the only option.

Provided, of course, that Conner would take the mantle of Superman in his stead.

So it was settled. Lois Lane went back to work at the Daily Planet. Kara Danvers got the promotion to _“Superwoman” _that many had felt was a long time coming (being that, in less than twenty years, Lara Lane-Kent would most likely be Supergirl). Clark Kent got to be a stay-at-home dad; which, to his mind, was a promotion in and of itself.

And Conner Kent became Superman.

He’d been Superman for six years when the illegal research that necessitated Amanda Waller’s resignation from the directorship of ARGUS. So eager was young new director Iman Avesta to remain on a good footing with the superhero community in the light of such atrocity that she made an offer. An offer so bold that, if one were to listen intently, one could hear Amanda Waller spinning in her grave.

Iman Avesta offered a job at ARGUS for one of them in an effort to keep the agency honest and above board.

And Conner Kent was the one who volunteered first.

ARGUS had even given him a holographic facial projector, to be fitted on the back of his head. After all, Conner’s origin as a clone of both Superman and Lex Luthor had the wonky side-effect of completely halting the aging process. As long as he’d live, he’d still look like an eighteen-year-old. The projector allowed him to look like he was in his early thirties, just like the rest of his old Young Justice teammates. He needed to undergo facial scanning every six months to keep the predictive software that supplied his face up to date.

As far as civilian disguises went, Conner thought that projector beat the hell out of a pair of glasses.

And being a supercool spy was a damn sight more rewarding to him than being a reporter.

Agent Conner Kent of ARGUS slumped in his seat, across the desk from Iman Avesta.

“I _used _to have an in in Gotham,” he said. “I don’t know if I do anymore.”

* * *

**GOTHAM CITY**

Ninety minutes earlier, Cassandra Wayne had told her ex-girlfriend that she would be eating Big Belly Burger and watching _Mulholland Drive _in lieu of hanging out with her.

Cassandra Wayne had not been kidding.

She went to the drive-thru on Founders Island, and steered her motorcycle towards the sewer entrance that led to the Batcave beneath the RH Kane building (which was called _“Batcave North,” _to distinguish it from the one beneath Wayne Manor).

Cassandra entered her darkened top floor apartment, set her bagged-up double and fries and her triple-thick chocolate shake on the small table next to the doorway, and said:

“Alfred, lights.”

The lights in the living room and the kitchen turned on. The synthesized voice of the late (and, in Cassandra’s estimation, truly great) Alfred Pennyworth said “Welcome home, Miss Wayne.”

“Thank you,” she said, picking her food back up, and transferring it to the table in the kitchen. “Any messages?”

“Yes,” Alfred the VI assistant said. “One from Professor Mizoguchi. She wished to go over next quarter’s funding for the EMGU.”

Cassandra sighed. As a matter of good form, heiresses from wealthy families were supposed to have at least one charitable interest. Cassanrda, for her part, had two.

The first was the Effort to Map Gotham’s Underground, overseen by Professor Mia Mizoguchi of Gotham University. Professor Mizoguchi was in the Cartography Department. Cassandra, who had never gone to college (or indeed, had never had a day of formal schooling in her life) hadn’t known GU even _had _a Cartography Department. But Gotham’s underground needed to be mapped. Partly because of the historical significance, and partly because if it could be mapped, it could be _surveilled. _ About sixteen years prior, The Undying held Gotham City hostage from his base within a series of subway tunnels that had been abandoned in 1898, then promptly forgotten about in the approximately one-hundred-twenty years since.

So yeah, _that _shit wasn’t happening again.

“I’ll call her in the morning,” Cassandra said. “Anything else?”

“One more,” Alfred said. “From your father.”

Cassandra felt an instant of fright, before it was immediately stilled.

“We’ve gone over this,” Cassandra said. “Bruce is my _dad. _ Not my _father.”_

“I’m terribly sorry,” Alfred said. “But I’m afraid I cannot tell the difference.”

Cassandra could.

So could Bruce.

Her father was the former League of Assassins toady David Cain. Cassandra had been conceived for the sole purpose of becoming _“The One-Who-is-All:” _a bodyguard for Ra’s al Ghul himself. She was trained, practically from the moment of her birth, as a killing machine. She was raised in a complete dearth of verbal and written stimulus, which enabled her to use body language as her first method of communication, but also rendered her unable to speak or read.

That she was a classically trained actor who refused to kill now, at the age of thirty-three, was the biggest gob of spit in the eye that she could hock at her father.

But her _dad? _ Her dad was Bruce Wayne. The former Batman that passed the mantle to her. The man who adopted her at the age of twenty-one. The man who told her the difference between a father and a dad.

He’d broached the subject about a month after Alfred Pennyworth himself had passed away in his sleep. Bruce told her that Alfred was not his father. Thomas Wayne was. But Alfred certainly was Bruce’s _dad. _ The man who looked after him, worried about him, loved him, supported him even when he verged on the reckless and the stupid, and tried to guide him.

He said that he himself was not Cassandra’s father.

But, if she’d let him, he very much wanted to be Cassandra’s dad.

Her father was still rotting away in Iron Heights prison for his hand in Harmonia’s plot to destroy the Multiverse.

Her dad, on the other hand, was a billionaire ex-superhero who liked to spend his days helping build houses.

“What did Dad want?” Cassandra asked.

“He wished to know how your speech was coming along,” Alfred said.

_Oh._

_That._

If the Effort to Map Gotham’s Underground was her first charitable endeavour, then The Pennyworth Fund was her second. Named after Alfred himself, The Pennyworth Fund provided the chance for impoverished Gotham kids to get an education in the arts. 

Which meant that every year, she had to give a speech at a fundraiser held at the Gotham Royale Hotel, begging the wealthy cream of Gotham City’s crop to cough up a few bucks so poor kids could get paint, ballet slippers, and copies of _Hamlet._

It was degrading. And this was coming from someone who had spent eight or nine years homeless between the time she ran away from her father and the time her dad took her in. She was no stranger to straight-up begging.

_But these people?_

_Jesus._

“I’ll talk to them both tomorrow,” Cassandra said. “Turn the TV on, please.”

The holographic television screen in the living room turned on.

Cassandra went into the bedroom.

Off came the shoes, off came the leather jacket, off came the slacks, off came the turtleneck, off came the bra, _on _came the oversized Smallville Crows t-shirt she’d had since the night she and Conner Kent swiped each others’ virginities.

She came back into the living room in naught but a pair of white undies obscured by that oversized shirt, which almost came down to her knees. She held her reading glasses in her right hand.

Cassandra stopped and looked at her living room. Surveying her kingdom, so to speak.

The far wall was almost wallpapered with posters from all the plays she’d been in. She was a professional actor, and lived humbly off of what she’d made. The only exceptions being the building in which she lived (provided for her by Kate Kane after she left Gotham City), and the plastic surgery needed to get rid of all the scars she’d had from the neck down. Those surgical procedures took years, and millions of Bruce’s money, but they were worth it. She’d gotten those scars, those cuts and those burns and those gunshot wounds, in training under a father who wanted to keep her mute and illiterate, subservient and stupid.

That just wasn’t who she was anymore, so they had to go.

But at the center of all those posters, as though they were veins stemming from a heart, was the most prized physical object in this apartment. The one thing for which she held the most pride, and which signified the greatest accomplishment.

Her GED.

With the help of Barbara Gordon and Jason Todd, she had learned to read well enough to attempt getting her General Education Development diploma, and she succeeded on her first try at the of twenty-nine.

To the left of her GED, hanging there on the wall, was a hat rack where two hats rested.

The first was a white Stetson that her ex-boyfriend Conner Kent (the then-Superboy and current Superman) had gotten her on a Young Justice rescue mission in Texas about fifteen years ago.

The other hat, hanging to the right of it, was a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball cap.

After Game Seven, which saw the Gotham City Knights obliterated by a Shadow Density bomb, along with their stadium and the four blocks surrounding it, Gotham as a whole stopped watching baseball. But Cassandra Wayne never did. The allure of the sport that she had seen in the Knights’ run-up to the World Series never dimmed in her view.

And Cassandra was a Pirates fan.

Partly because black and yellow were her Bat colors.

And partly because, to put it bluntly, the Pirates sucked. She was a Gotham City vigilante, after all, so she felt a need to suffer in an existential way, lest she felt she was doing the whole thing wrong. What better way to pepper someone’s life with pain and anguish than with the Pittsburgh Pirates?

Cassandra went to the kitchen, got her food, plopped it down on the coffee table in front of the plush red living room couch, and sat down cross-legged.

She was about to put on her reading glasses when…

“I hate to interrupt you,” Alfred said, “but your glasses need to be updated.”

“Oh,” Cassandra said, holding them up. “Alright.”

The plain black frames of the glasses started glowing a faint blue.

Cassandra Wayne had dyslexia. The words and letters she attempted to read were in the wrong places, they shifted around when she blinked, and she even read the same lines of text over and over again because she couldn’t really tell where they began or ended.

WayneTech came to the rescue. After months of rigorous testing in Luke Fox’s lab, they had successfully _“mapped” _the speech centers of Cassandra’s brain. These glasses, in layman’s terms, moved words and letters around in compensation for her dyslexia so she could understand them perfectly.

She needed to go into the lab every months or so for testing, and the glasses needed constant software updates, but Cassandra reckoned if this technology became both cheap and widely available, then she’d do every commercial for it WayneTech wanted her to. She’d be on the Goddamned brochures and everything. Since she got these glasses four years ago, she’d finally started reading for fun, as the bookshelf full of Ed McBain procedurals in her bedroom would readily indicate.

Which isn’t to say that Cassandra was unable to read without them. It just took a while.

“Done,” Alfred said after a moment.

“Thank you,” she said. She put on her glasses, and was about to tell Alfred to queue up _Mulholland Drive…_

...when both the television screen and every other light in the apartment started blinking red.

At first, Cassandra didn’t know why. But then, with gooseflesh breaking out all over her body, she remembered.

It was the May-Day signal.

If the vital signs of herself, The Signal, or Mother Panic either spiked or plummeted to a dangerous degree, the May-Day signal would go out, alerting the other two.

“Mister Thomas is attempting to contact you,” Alfred said.

“Put him through.”

The television screen clicked to Duke Thomas, standing in his bedroom in a gray sweatshirt, looking into the camera and holding his wife Riko’s hand as all the lights in his house were blinking red as well.

Cassandra and Duke looked at each other.

They didn’t say anything.

They didn’t need to.

Something horrible had happened to Violet Paige.

* * *

The bulky, forbidding tank of the Batmobile roared through the streets of Burnside with Black Bat in the driver’s seat.

The Signal spoke to her through the comm in her mask.

“Get here quick,” he said. “Because… _Jesus…”_

The readout on the Batmobile’s dash pegged Mother Panic’s diminishing vitals coming from the top floor of a storage building a block away.

Not enough time to take the stairs.

Black Bat retracted the roof of the Batmobile, and hit the ejector seat.

As she spread out her cape, and glided toward the third floor window, a contrary voice in her head decided now was the opportune time to speak up.

_You idiot! Broken glass will contaminate the crime scene!_

Not to let an insult to herself _by _herself go unremarked upon, Black Bat responded in kind.

_Eat the darkest part of my gorgeous ass, Contrary-Voice-in-My-Head. It’s not like we’d let any cop other than Duke on that scene._

**Crash!**

Black Bat erupted through the third-floor window, and landed on one knee upon w hardwood floor, her black cape spread out around her.

She arose to see carnage, even apart from the mess she’d made of the window. There were great whacks of this floor’s brick walls torn free. Dents in the wooden floor so deep that they brought up splinters. Additional broken glass from the skylight above them peppered the floor.

And in the middle of it was Violet Page, held by The Signal, languishing and clinging to life in a sizeable pool of her own blood.

Every inch of her white Mother Panic costume was either black with dirt or red with claret. It had been ripped from her collarbone down to her stomach, revealing purple welts, smeared blood, and the black sports bra she wore underneath.

Half of her white helmet lay in ruins at her feet. The other half was apparently missing.

Violet Page’s face was a moist, wet bruise. Both of her eyes were swollen shut beneath a crimson mask of blood. And The Signal was easing something out of her mouth, and only after Black Bat had blinked a couple of times did she realize what it was.

The perpetrator of this gruesome act had stuffed a healthy portion of Mother Panic’s white cape down her throat.

Black Bat tried to reckon with all of this.

Mother Panic had super strength. She could bend steel, punch holes through walls, rip armor plating off of buses.

Which begged the question: Who did this to her?

Or _what?_

The Signal had finally eased all of the cape out of Violet’s throat. At which she violently convulsed, before letting a thick stream of bloody vomit from her mouth.

But at least she was breathing.

“She needs medical attention,” The Signal said. “Now.”

Black Bat nodded. “And I know someone who can give it to her.”

“Discretion?”

“Yes.”

The Signal tilted his head, and asked “We’re going to see your father?”

“No,” Black Bat said. “We’re going to see my _dad.”_

* * *

The Signal and Black Bat had gently eased the unconscious Violet Paige into the back hatch of the Batmobile at street level, after gingerly carrying her into the thankfully still-operational freight elevator. They sedated her and hooked her up to an IV drip.

And now the Batmobile, with Black Bat driving and The Signal riding shotgun, made its way to Wayne Manor.

“Did you do your thing?” Black Bat asked.

The general assumption was that Mother Panic was a metahuman, while The Signal was not.

In fact, the opposite was true.

Violet Paige had had cybernetics that augmented her strength and reflexes implanted in her body when she was in her early teens, while she was a pupil of Gather House; a boarding school that was a front for human experimentation. Gather House burned down, in an act of arson that killed all of the scientists, students, and instructors within, save one.

Violet Paige herself.

No points for guessing that she was the one who started the fire.

Duke Thomas, however, truly was metahuman. His power was difficult to explain, save for one canned response that was close enough.

He could read light.

Duke could see beyond the normal spectrum, detect subtle variations, and even radio waves.

One aspect of this ability that helped him the most was what he called _“Photocognition,” _which allowed him to read light’s history in a given room. This told him what had happened there. He could see what happened in a room _after _it had occurred. Which was a handy tool for a homicide detective to have.

Another was that he could read how light _would _flow through a room, giving him slight precognition. Not much. Just about five seconds. It was a great thing to have during a fight.

Cassandra Wayne had fought Duke Thomas once, early in his career, before she knew which side he was on. Despite having no formal martial training, Cass couldn’t land a shot on him. Because he knew which moves she’d make before she made them. And, of course, vice-versa.

Compare and contrast with Violet Paige, whom Cassandra had also fought. Violet was trained in wrestling and martial arts at Gather House, and had super strength and reflexes to boot. And Violet Paige… got her ass kicked.

The Signal nodded.

“I couldn’t pick anything up,” he said.

Black Bat took her eyes off the road for just a moment to look at him. “How is that possible?”

“I need light to do my thing.”

“There’s _always light.”_

“Not this time,” The Signal said. “Whoever did this used some kind of gas I’ve never seen before. Sucked the light out of the room.”

“You’ve used your powers on tear gas,” Black Bat said.

“Tear gas is different,” said The Signal. “The particles are reflective. If anything, that _helps _me do what I do. This new gas? Not so much. Wanna know the first part that scares me?”

“Shoot.”

“This gas that prevents me from seeing what happened would have been useless on thermal vision.”

“Didn’t Mother Panic’s helmet have thermal capabilities?” Black Bat asked.

“It did,” The Signal said. “The gas wasn’t used to handicap Mother Panic…”

“...it was used to handicap you,” Black Bat said. “Because they knew you were going to come looking.”

“Right,” The Signal said. “And my powers aren’t common knowledge. It’s not like any motherfucker on the street knows I have powers to begin with. Which brings me to the _second _thing that scares me.”

A moment of silence, as the gravity settled in on her. And if her fears at the moment weren’t great enough, they were indeed when The Signal just came out and gave them voice.

“Cass, whoever did this? They know who we are.”

* * *

**CARDIFF, WALES**

The life of Natalie Venora was a series of hotel rooms.

Her job as a bodyguard took her all over the world: Tokyo one week, Paris the next, an odd stint in Hub City in between. Miss Venora listed her official address in Los Angeles, but truth be told, she hadn’t been there in months.

Take today’s job, for instance: A Columbian fellow found himself in possession of quite a bit of product, and wanted to fashion himself like Tony Montana, as did so many before him. One online dark auction later, and the Yardie gangs in Cardiff had enough supply to make them kings. But our Columbian friend wanted to ensure safe passage in the land of the Welsh, and that’s where Natalie came in.

Not that Natalie ever cared, or even researched the things her clients were buying or selling. That way madness lie. Or worse yet, bankruptcy.

But Natalie Venora was the one to call if you had worries about your safety in the normal appointed rounds of international criminal enterprise. If someone tried to kill you before the deal, then Natalie Venora was the one that stopped them. If another guy’s muscle tried to flex nuts, Natalie Venora was the one who put them in their place. And may the fates and the furies help you if you tried to back out or lowball, because the fear of God is a theory. The fear of Natalie Venora is a _fact._

She was known the world over by name, by people one does not want _knowing _their names. She commanded top dollar and was worth every penny, schilling, yen, ruble, yuan, rupee, and shekel. And the only extranagances to her _modus operandi_ were but two:

Natalie Venora would not take part in the sale of human beings.

And Natalie Venora would not take a life.

If you wanted someone hit, you hired a hitter. But if you wanted a deal done according to Hoyle, if you wanted the opposite party to feel the pressure, if you wanted the other guy to come down with a sudden case of honesty, there was only one name on your contacts list.

And we find Natalie Venora a few hours before dawn in Wales, in jeans and a tight blue t-shirt, lounging on a bed in the St. David’s hotel overlooking Cardiff Bay.

Natalie herself was _not _looking at Cardiff Bay.

No, Natalie was watching television. _Welsh _television. Trying to figure out just what the fuck everyone was saying.

As she was weighing whether or not to keep watching TV or go downstairs and hit on the cute girl that was working the desk downstairs (the one that made that thick accent of hers do somersaults and beg for treats), she caught her own reflection in the framed painting on the wall to her left. Soft blue eyes that directly contradicted her job and her worldview, her brown hair freed from its usual ponytail and draped over her shoulders like freshly fallen snow.

She needed to see a stylist soon.

Her blonde roots were coming back in.

Her phone started ringing. She picked it up off the nightstand and answered it.

It was Jerry Timo, one of her many, _many _brokers.

The holographic image of Jerry stemming from Natalie’s phone rubbed his hands through his thinning red hair.

“Nat?”

“Jerry.”

“I got a job for you if you want one,” Jerry said. “You gotta have an answer for me fast, though. It’s soon and it’s hot. _Kaznian.”_

Natalie simply said “Cut?”

“You don’t want to know what it is?” Jerry asked. “Whether your client is selling to the evil empire or the plucky rebels? Or even--”

Natalie rolled her eyes. She wasn’t buying or selling _anything. _ Just making sure that other guy played nice with her client.

“Jerry?”

“Yeah?”

Natalie put some stank on her voice when she said _“Cut.”_

“Three million,” Jerry said.

Natalie nodded. Three million was doable.

“Time?”

“Tomorrow night.”

“Place?” Natalie asked.

“Gotham City.”

Natalie’s back froze. Each separate morsel of the fish and chips she’d had for lunch started arguing with each other. Her face was still for a moment.

“Nat?” Jerry asked. “Did my image freeze, or--”

“Five million,” Natalie said. It was a gambit, it was playing with her reputation, but she could take a few hits if it meant she didn’t have to go to Gotham.

“What?” Jerry asked. “You said five million? You were fine with three a couple of--”

_“Six _million,” Natalie said.

_Come on, Jerry. Call my diva card and tell me to fuck off. Do _not _pull an extra three mill out of your ass to get me to go to Gotham._

“Fine,” Jerry said. “Six million it is. Jesus Christ…”

The air left Natalie’s lungs through her nose. Dread replaced it.

Jerry pulled an extra three mill out of his ass to get her to go to Gotham.

“Transpo?”

“Waiting for you at Cardiff Airport right now,” Jerry said. “Gassed up and ready t--”

Natalie hung up.

She turned off the television and stared, yet again, at another flat surface containing her reflection.

Natalie Venora had never done her line of business in Gotham City before. By all accounts, there was no reason she shouldn’t do business there.

But here was the catch:

Natalie Venora’s real name was Stephanie Brown.

And did Stephanie Brown have problems going to Gotham City?

This question she answered aloud in her empty hotel room.

“You’re fucking A right, I do.”

But as much as she’d sit there trying to convince herself otherwise, she knew that she would go.

_I can keep a low profile, right?_

_And six million bucks is six million bucks..._


	4. Chairwoman of the Not-So-Bored

**Chapter 4: Chairwoman of the Not-So-Bored**

**GOTHAM CITY**

The CEO of Wayne Enterprises kicked open the door of the top-floor boardroom in Wayne Tower, scaring seven shades of shit out of Ferris Boyle Jr., the only person present.

“Sorry,” Selina Wayne said. “Gotta make an entrance.”

She then took a long draw of the can of Diet Soder she’d been holding as she walked in.

Selina had been called any number of things since she’d assumed stewardship of Wayne Enterprises five years ago.

Her cover profile in _Catco Magazine _last year called her _“Fun & Fabulous at Fifty!” _ Which was true, but Jesus, did they have to _say _it like that?

Another magazine profile by _Forbes _called her _“The Only Sane Voice in Corporate America.” _ Which was also true.

But it was the informal one that she’d developed among the other Fortune 500 CEOs that kept her here late tonight when she should be at home.

_“The Flipper.”_

Ferris Boyle Jr. had a company he wanted to sell her.

Selina sat a couple of chairs away from Ferris at the table in the enormous, empty boardroom. She was wearing gray skirt that ended an inch above the knee, showing the world firm calves that showed no signs of softening now that she was one year past the half-century mark. A gray blazer over a white dress shirt with three buttons undone.

There was a softness to her jaw now, some sag along the neck, some lines around her green eyes, but they seemed to add to her as opposed to detract.. An unfortunate portion of people look like they’ve started melting once they hit forty. But a lucky few make their wrinkles look like a next stage of evolution. And Selina Wayne was very much the latter.

In fact, the biggest feature that betrayed her age was the long streak of gray that stretched across the right side of her shoulder-length black hair.

Damnedest thing, though, was that streak of gray was dye. Her hair was still as black as it had been when she was a child. And contrary to the tabloids, it was the only part of her body that was fake.

“We seem to be missing something,” Selina said. _ “Right _. The contract.”

She put her finger to her ear. “Bobby, Mister Boyle and I need the contract. Quick as you can.”

A moment later, her assistant Bobby entered with a sheaf of paper and a pen. Bobby was a young man in his early twenties with blonde hair and chiseled features. Selina found him rather lovely to look at.

She was married to the only man she ever loved, but even vegetarians think bacon smells good.

Bobby set the contract and the pen in front of Ferris Boyle Jr. before making his silent exit.

“Now then,” Ferris said, picking up the pen and working a fake smile onto his doughy face..

“No ceremony?”

Boyle’s large, bald head snapped toward her. That was a thing Selina had noticed about him. His eyes didn’t move by themselves. He had to move his whole head.

“What do you mean?” Boyle asked.

“I’m about to buy GothCorp,” Selina said. “It was your father’s company, it’s _your _company, and we’re just a signature away from it becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Wayne Enterprises. Nothing to… mark the occasion?”

That egg-shaped head of his turned a slight pink. “Do you think there _needs _to be something? It’s just us here.”

“You didn’t even read the contract.”

“Do I have to?”

Selina allowed this silly bastard a grin. “I guess that’s the difference between you and me. I came up in the world from nothing. You live like that, you have to look over every piece of paper you have to put your name on for fear someone with more money might be screwing you for life… But I guess you don’t have that problem.”

Boyle stared at her for a couple of seconds. Then he put the pen down, and started leafing through the contract.

With each flip of the page, that bald head of his got more and more red. On the fifth page, he looked up at Selina with the utmost hatred in his eyes.

“Is this some kind of a fucking _joke? _”

Selina laughed. The last guy she pulled this on just started crying. This was _much _better.

“No,” Selina said, trying to stave off more laughter. “It’s… It’s not a joke.”

Boyle pounded his meaty fist on the desk.

“Are you trying to tell me that I’m signing a multi-billion dollar corporation that’s been in the Boyle family for generations over to Wayne Enterprises, and all I’m getting for it is _just two million dollars?”_

“Yes,” Selina said, ain’t-I-a-stinker? smile locked firmly in place.

They called her _“The Flipper” _for a reason. She flipped corporations like other people flipped houses.

The first company she did this little song-and-dance with was LexCorp. After Game Seven, it came to light that Lex Luthor had made significant campaign contributions to two senators who killed the so-called _“Supervillain Bill” _which would have given harsh federal penalties to anyone caught committing a crime in a costume and under an alias.

After this came to light, the consumer boycott of all LexCorp products was immediate and long-lasting. The company was still making money, but the boycott had gotten so bad that they had to shutter their consumer goods division. This caused the stock to dip to such an extent that, when Bruce Wayne named Selina as CEO, her first big act was to buy LexCorp out.

Selina cleaned out all the people at the top and, after an extensive screening process, found their replacements. And just when there were rumors of the United States Senate taking antitrust actions against Wayne Enterprises, Selina divested LexCorp from the Wayne Enterprises portfolio. It was an independent corporation once again. A LexCorp that found its workers with better pension plans. A LexCorp that offered competitive living wages even to its custodial staff. A LexCorp that didn’t waste billions of dollars trying to kill Superman.

And legend has it that on calm nights, if one listens closely, one can still hear Lena Luthor playing the flute on Metropolis street corners for spare change. Her brother Lex would join her for a duet, if he weren’t so busy rotting in prison.

There was some tut-tutting from the Wayne Enterprises board of directors about this, but Luke Fox in the WayneTech division kept pumping out new electronic products at such a rapid rate that they more than offset any losses the company might have had. Two of every five holographic television sets in America had the WayneTech logo on them somewhere.

Selina had done this with five corporations, each one generously caring for its employees in her wake. Ferris Boyle Jr’s GothCorp would be number six. But her white whale had been, and always would be, NewsCorp.

_Fucking Murdochs…_

The packages for outgoing CEOs were covered under their NDAs. The CEO class figured that they were confidential because if word got out, they’d sow unrest in an increasingly anti-capitalist middle class. Investor confidence would drop, which was considered the worst thing that could happen to anyone, anywhere, ever, in the history of all possible universes.

But as Ferris Boyle Jr. just found out, that wasn’t really the case.

“What did I do to make you insult me like this?” Boyle asked. “Because that’s what this is.”

“Existing,” Selina said. “That’s just for starters. But if you want to do a deep-dive?”

Selina stood up, taking another swig of her diet soda.

“You’ve been raiding employee pensions, Ferris. I have proof.”

Boyle looked taken aback.

“I also have proof of certain… let’s say _‘proclivities…’ _that members of the GothCorp board of directors have. Proclivities that I also have proof you _knew _about. You don’t sign that contract, and I’m not gonna say you’re gonna go to prison, but you’re never getting a corporate job again. The stockholders will demand you be ousted, and I’ll have to pay a hell of a lot less for GothCorp than I’m paying now.”

Boyle blinked at her uncomprehendingly.

“You’re… You’re _blackmailing me?”_

Selina had to fight off more laughter. “I’m an _ex-supervillain, _you dumb wad of shit! Of _course _I’m blackmailing you! I’m swindling an asshole who’s the son of an even bigger asshole.”

Ferris stood up so rapidly that her knocked over the chair in which he’d been sitting.

“My father… was a great man.”

“Your father,” Selina said, “was responsible for Mister Freeze. _And _responsible for the countless lives Mister Freeze ended. You’d think with a dad like that, who did what he did, you’d have treated your employees better. But you’re stealing from them, Ferris. You’re _exploiting _them. And that is some shit I just won’t put up with… Oh, and before I forget, Nora says Hi.”

Ferris Boyle Jr. straightened his jacket, collected his dignity, and said “You’re lying.”

“You’re right,” Selina said. “I _am _lying. Nora actually told you to go fuck yourself.”

“You don’t have any proof of anything.”

“I have one of the best detectives on Earth on the Wayne payroll,” Selina said. “If I _am _bluffing, do you really feel like calling it?”

“I have friends,” Boyle said. “Friends that will--”

“No you don’t, Ferris, quit lying. What friends do you have? Your other corporate buddies? GothCorp is the sixth corporation that I’ve done this to, and none of the other five tried to contact you to tell you what was up? They didn’t tell you because you all fucking hate each other. They want to see that look on your face right now more than I do. And I _really _wanted to see the look on your face.”

Selina leaned on the table and looked him in the eye.

“You don’t have shit in this world, Ferris. Except a trophy wife who’s going to leave you in a month, kids who are gonna hate you now that their free rides are over… and the two million dollars in that contract.”

Boyle was quiet for a long time. And when he finally spoke, it was with genuine pain in his voice.

“What on Earth am I going to do with just two million dollars?”

Selina didn’t feel like laughing anymore. She felt like knocking Ferris Boyle Jr. on his ass.

“A lot,” Selina said. “Those employees you tried to fuck in the ass? They could do a lot with two million dollars. You live like one of them, and two million dollars will take you into your twilight years… Or you can be the complete waste of space you’ve been up to this point, and go through it all in twenty minutes.”

“Why are you doing this?”

Selina folded her arms, and tilted her head slightly to the side. She still didn’t feel like laughing, but she could at least manage a small grin.

“If you have proof,” Boyle said, “if you can end this while buying GothCorp for pennies… why _this?”_

Selina looked at the gray carpet of the Wayne Enterprises boardroom for a moment before she looked back at him.

“I can take a lot from you, Ferris,” she said. “I can take… and take… and take. I was the best thief in the world before my better angels spoke to me. Taking is kinda my thing.”

She took a step toward him. He had five inches on her, but it seems he’d shrunken during the course of the conversation.

“But your _dignity?” _she asked. “I can’t take that. Your dignity can only be given to me of your own free will. All it takes is your signature. See, the old song is true, Ferris. The best things in life… really are free.”

Boyle stared at her. He let out a shuddering breath.

But he finally signed the contract.

“There,” Selina said. “All is right in the world. Now get the fuck out of my boardroom.”

Boyle made a sad, slow trek toward the door. He stopped at the halfway point to look at her again, and Selina was pleased to note that he had been defeated so soundly that he couldn’t even muster up sufficient rage for a glare.

Selina let out a contented sigh as soon as he was gone. A thought entered her head, as it sometimes did.

_If I got a business degree instead of spandex and a whip, I could have been having this much fun _ages _ago Ripping off rich assholes is so much better in person._

But then again, she had to reckon that if she went into business instead of cat burglary, she never would have met Bruce. Or rather, she would have met Bruce, but not the side of him that _drew _her to him. The side of him that let her see all of the other sides.

So yeah. All those fist fights and all those falls off of roofs were worth it. And then some.

Selina picked up her can of soda, and weighed her options.

She could stay sober and drive back to Wayne Manor, or…

Selina walked over to a small, hidden compartment on the far wall of the boardroom.

The liquor cabinet she’d had put in.

Selina dropped two ice cubes into a glass, about a shot’s worth of Suntory Hibiki over that, and then just dumped the rest of her can of soda right on top of it.

She sat at the head of the long boardroom table, took a sip of her drink, and called out for the airwave phone line.

“Call the Manor,” she said.

It took a few moments, but she knew who would answer.

The voice of Wayne Manor’s butler sounded in the boardroom.

“I take it the signing went well?”

“That it did,” Selina said. “Hell of a thing, though. A whiskey and soda seems to have magically appeared before me.”

“Did it, now?”

“Yeah,” Selina said. “Must be one of those miracle things they talk about in my Sunday School classes.” 

“And we know how much you love Sunday School.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Selina asked. “I don’t have it in me to argue with a sign from God, so I just started drinking.”

“I’ll be by to pick you up in a few,” the butler said.

Selina smiled. The big toothy one she got when she was genuinely pleased.

“Thanks, Cullen. You’re a peach.”

* * *

In the dead of this late October night, a lone pickup truck kicked up dust on a dirt road leading to Wayne Manor.

The radio within was tuned to a news station.

There were fires in the Amazon.

A hotel in Malaysia collapsed under mysterious circumstances.

And a power plant had exploded in North Carolina, taking the tiny town of Parisot with it. 

Further inspection of this particular truck as it makes its way through the gate in front of the old house reveals this to be a dark blue Ford. One of the new models with the Kord electric upgrade.

An even more intensive glance as it pulls into the near-ostentatiously large garage on the eastern side of the Wayne Manor grounds shows that it’s the kid of pickup truck modified with a built-in toolbox in the back.

The truck pulled into parking slot F3, right next to the red Ferrari, and its driver took the keys out of the ignition and looked at himself in the rear view mirror.

Bruce Wayne thought the beard made him look younger.

He was afflicted with a few stray gray hairs. Quite a few more than his wife. But the beard and the shaggy black hair that reached the collar of his red flannel work shirt got guesses of his age at around thirty-eight.

But it was the eyes that revealed a man in his fifties. Not so much the lines around them, though they were there as well. It was more the depth of those cobalt blue eyes that told the tale. They looked like they had seen far too much for him to be any younger than he actually was.

Bruce looked down at his rough, calloused hands, and let his mind wander for a moment or two…

* * *

Six years ago, Bruce Wayne officially retired from his day-to-day operations as Batman.

To those that knew both man and alter-ego (and both Diana of Themyscira and Clark Kent considered themselves among their number), almost all of them thought that Bruce would die with that cowl on, either of old age or in the line, as opposed to relinquishing it to his adopted daughter voluntarily at the age of forty-five.

And all would have been shocked at how little it took for him to give it up.

Every year on February 19, his birthday, Bruce Wayne set himself against a self-imposed and self-designed obstacle course configured to test his endurance, his speed, and his strength.

On the day he turned forty-four, he found that he was two seconds slower than the previous year’s time.

It wasn’t the end of the world, even though Bruce had treated it as such. A great challenge that must be surmounted at all costs. His times had slipped before, but he always bounced back for an even better time than the previous year.

For the three-hundred-sixty-four days after, he pushed himself in his training, put everything he had into his patrols, found new limits to his physical being only to surpass them.

And on the three-hundred-sixty-fifth day, the day of his forty-fifth birthday, he ran the obstacle course again.

He was another two seconds slower.

Standing at the end of the course in the Batcave, naked to the waist, rivers of sweat pouring down his body, everything hurting, he remembered the night his parents died.

He was cursed with a photographic memory, you see. Even though it felt like eons of torture at the time, parted from all subjectivity, it only took three seconds for Joe Chill to gun down Thomas and Martha Wayne.

Four seconds was not just four seconds to Bruce Wayne. Four seconds, for him, was two separate lifetimes.

Standing there, sweating, aching, and forty-five years old, Bruce knew that it was over.

The mistake that the people who knew Bruce made, the ones who thought he’d die with the cowl on or only part with it kicking and screaming, was that they only envisioned scenarios where Bruce would say _“I won’t be Batman,” _or _“I can’t be Batman.”_

No one ever considered a scenario where Bruce would say _“I _shouldn’t _be Batman.” _ It was hard to forget, with the displays of ego and paranoia that marked him among his few friends and many acquaintances, that Batman (and Bruce Wayne) was a servant of the public. And if he was not able to attend to his duties in the capacity that they required, then he would have to pass those duties to someone else.

He showered, got into a new set of clothes, and made two separate phone calls. He would need to have two conversations the following day here at Wayne Manor.

The first would be with his former ward Dick Grayson, the man Bruce Wayne looked upon as a son.

This conversation went poorly.

The other conversation that he would need to have would be with his adopted daughter Cassandra Wayne.

This conversation went rather well.

* * *

Bruce Wayne still thought of himself as Batman

He still wanted to be Batman.

But he _shouldn’t _be Batman.

There was no shame in growing old. There was only shame in not admitting it.

And that left him in the interim six years between his retirement and the present moment, staring at his hands in the cab of a pickup truck with thoughts and feelings overgrowing in his mind, becoming a hazy thicket that confused him on some days. Tripped him up on others. It got to the point that three years back, he scheduled appointments with a series of doctors for fear that he was succumbing to early-onset dementia.

This turned out not to be the case. The neurologist who gave him a third opinion said the root of his problems might be psychological. 

His therapist, Doctor Harleen Quinzel, cut to the heart of it: He was expecting closure from his time as Batman, and he didn’t get it.

What that closure could be though? Bruce could not say. He could plan for anything, but he wasn’t good at things like… _this._

He got out of the truck, brushed some stray bits of drywall from his faded jeans, and walked into Wayne Manor proper.

Selina was waiting for him in the foyer, her gray jacket slung over the shoulder of her white button-up.

“I take it it went well,” Bruce said.

“What’s that thing I always like to say?” Selina asked.

Bruce grinned, and said _“‘There isn’t a prettier sight in the world than a rich white asshole being forced to buy a smaller yacht.’”_

Selina smiled, dropped her blazer on the floor, and walked to him.

He took in her perfume as they kissed. Her hands roamed the musculature of his back. And when the kiss broke, she pressed her face into his chest, before coming up and saying:

“You smell like sweat.”

“Sorry,” he said.

Selina took another whiff of him, and said “Of all the things you could apologize for, Sailor, don’t let smelling like sweat be one of them. How was your day?”

“Busy.”

Selina took another whiff, and said “I can tell.”

Once Bruce wasn’t Batman anymore, he didn’t particularly want to be the CEO of Wayne Enterprises anymore, either. He passed the duties of CEO onto Selina. The Wayne board of directors unanimously approved of the decision, considering the masterful job she had done as CEO of Kyle Security (which had been folded into WayneTech after the transition of power from husband to wife).

Now Bruce Wayne spent his free days signing on to various construction crews under assumed names, doing building and renovation work.

It was something to do with his hands. It was a singular goal during which he could focus. During which he felt no confusion. And all the money he was paid went to a charity he chose at random.

“So what’s your evening looking like?” Selina asked.

Bruce pondered this for a second. “I was thinking about getting a workout in.”

Selina’s eyes lit up. _ “Great. _ Can I watch?”

“You can join in.”

“Even _better.”_

* * *

The shrine was on fire.

Located at the base of Mount Fuji, this Shinto monastery was a peaceful place that just so happened to house Isoroku Nakamura, a former analyst for Japanese intelligence that had information on League of Assassin cells dotted throughout the eastern hemisphere. He came here for sanctuary. To be hidden from the outside world.

So naturally, the League found him.

Lucky for Mister Nakamura, though: There were two people in the area who were more than happy to help.

Bruce balled up his right fist and laid it into the face of an Assassin. He couldn’t see most of his attacker’s face behind the black wraps that covered his head, but he thought he heard the snap of breaking jaw as he careened to the stone floor of the courtyard outside the burning shrine.

Three more descended from the trees, each clad in black leather armor, each brandishing scimitars. Their swords brought up sparks from the stone floor where Bruce had been less than a second before.

Bruce got up from his roll, his bare feet scraping across the stone. He got into a defensive stance.

**CRACK!**

Selina came swinging in from her bullwhip and knocked out two of the Assassins with kicks to the back of the head before, in one fluid motion, she uncoiled the whip from the tree, pivoted, and wrapped it around the neck of the third Assassin with a backswing.

She reeled him in, whirling around, and dispatched him with an elbow to the bridge of the nose, followed by a sickening crunch and a spurt of blood from between his black face wraps.

Bruce got out of his defensive posture and took a moment to… _admire _his wife.

Standing there, legs apart, muscles flexing in silver tights and a black sports bra as she uncoiled the whip from the unlucky Assassin’s neck. The beads of sweat rolling down her bare midriff reflected the fire from the shrine, giving the appearance of molten lava making inroads along the tight musculature of her stomach.

Fifty-one years old, and she still looked like she was carved out of granite. Curve and muscle, poise and style. Eyes like the leaves of healthy trees on a blustery, rainy day.

She was slower than she used to be, but she made up for it by adding power to her repertoire. Her shoulders and arms were bulkier than they’d been in her thirties. She reveled in peacetime but even now, after the end of everything, after _Catwoman, _she was still ready for war.

Bruce stopped himself from eyeballing Selina.

And then he stopped himself from stopping himself.

If one could not drool over their wife of fifteen years, then over whom, precisely, could one drool?

Bruce heard the grind of rubber soles on concrete, and he turned.

The Assassin whose jaw he had broken seemed to want more.

So Bruce gave him more in the form of a swift sidekick to the face.

With all of the League members taken care of, Bruce ran up to the large barred door of the burning shrine in which Nakamura was located…

...only for Selina to run in front of him, blocking his way.

He looked at her and frowned.

She looked at him and grinned.

Bruce tried to get past her, but Selina hopped up to sit on the heavy wooden bar that was keeping the door shut…

...and wrapped her legs around Bruce’s waist.

“Nakamura’s in there,” he said.

Selina raised her fool-spotting eyebrow, and said “Nakamura will keep.”

Bruce closed his eyes and sighed.

“This whole thing would be a lot more effective if you took it seriously.”

“You know what?” Selina asked. “You’re absolutely right. Holo-Room? _More fire!”_

The shrine burned even brighter and hotter, turning the artificial Japanese night sky from black to a dull and angry orange.

“Humor me?” Bruce asked.

Selina pouted and said “Fine,” before she unwrapped her legs from his waist.

“Alright,” Bruce said. He knelt down on the stone. “The wood of this bar is heavy and ancient, so if we both get down here and push up, we can--”

And know that he was kneeling, Selina sat back on the bar again and wrapped her thighs around his head.

It was a tight fit. Her legs were strong. And at this position, his nose and mouth were flush next to Selina’s…

_...well…_

“I’m just saying,” Selina said. “Given how close you are and the fabric of these tights, anything you say is gonna _vibrate. _ So… if you know The Gettysburg Address, now would be a great time to recite it.”

Bruce sighed...and didn’t stop himself in time, before he realized what he was doing.

Selina’s eyes rolled back in her head. “Interesting opener. I’m really curious what you say next.”

“Se--”

Selina actually _squealed._

_“Wow,” _Selina said. “I married the only man on Earth with something interesting to say!”

The wind stopped.

The tendrils of flame engulfing the shrine stilled in place like a furious sculpture.

And a voice from above boomed as though bellowed by furious angels.

**“Both of you put your Goddamn pants on and turn the simulation off. I’m coming in.”**

Selina sighed, and freed her husband from her thighs.

“End simulation,” Bruce said.

The courtyard, the shrine, all of Japan disappeared, revealing a large, gray, featureless Holo-Room in the depths of Batcave South beneath Wayne Manor.

Bruce folded his arms over his white tank-top undershirt and Selina fanned the sweat off of herself as one of the walls of the Holo-Room slid down.

Standing next to the display cases holding two Batgirl costumes and three Robin costumes, was a handsome, slim man in his early thirties. Black blazer, black slacks, white shirt, no tie. His brown hair was the kind of unkempt that took a half an hour in front of the bathroom mirror to properly pull off.

This was Cullen Row. Butler of Wayne Manor.

“This better be good,” Selina said.

“Define _‘good,’” _Cullen said. “We got a May-Day tonight.”

Bruce’s face fell, and he felt his insides curdle. _“What?”_

The look of concern on Selina’s face was instant. “It wasn’t Carrie, was it?”

“No,” Cullen said. “It was Violet. She’s in a bad way. Cass and Duke are bringing her here in the Batmobile.”

Bruce looked at Selina and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll go prep the med bay.”

He kissed her on the cheek, and went to work.

* * *

The door of the only business in a five story office building located in Gotham City’s steadily improving East End still said _“Bradley Investigations,” _even though the business’ namesake, Samuel _“Slam” _Bradley, had been dead for seven years.

The owner of the business, one Tim Drake, still kept the name in tribute.

Of all the members of the former teenage superteam Young Justice, it was Tim, the former Robin, that had changed the most and aged the worst.

This was by Tim’s own admission.

He was still in good shape, still attractive after a fashion. But his hairline had started its gradual-yet-inevitable march to the back of his head.

And his face had taken on a withered, raw aura. _ “Intense,” _some might say. Under the right light, though, he might still be considered handsome.

The lights in this office, however, were not the right ones. The overhead fluorescents shone directly on top of his head, bringing up the sheen of pale scalp from between the ever-diminishing forest of black hair.

Tim Drake was a private detective. He had been since he retired from the superhero game three months after Game Seven. And as much as everyone not in the know thought otherwise, the two events were in no way related.

He sat across from his client at the moment, one Erica Hampstead, from here in the East End. She had come to Bradley Investigations in fear that her husband was cheating on her.

And the array of photographs on the desk between them, featuring images of Erica’s husband Freddy _in_ _flagrante delicto_ with a blonde woman who worked at the same dockyard near the harbor, proved those fears to be well-founded.

“That motherfucker,” Erica said.

“I know,” Tim said in reply, his tone of the utmost sympathy and reassurance.

Erica narrowed her blue eyes at the photographs.

“That _motherfucker!”_

“I know,” Tim said again, his tone not changing.

She tucked a flyaway of brown hair behind her ear. “Looks like I gotta find a lawyer.”

“I hate to bring it up,” Tim said, “but there is still the matter of payment.”

Erica’s eyes darted to Tim, and narrowed even further.

“I just found out my husband’s cheating on me,” she said with an edge, “I got photos of him in front of me with his dick in some blonde’s mouth, and you got the balls to ask about your _money?”_

“Yes,” Tim said. “Yes I do.”

“You don’t think that’s insensitive?”

“You just called the father of your children a motherfucker. Twice. In rapid succession. Of all the ailments and afflictions you could lay claim to, Miss Hempstead, I don’t think sensitivity is one of them.”

He reached into the desk drawer and pulled out a sheet of paper. “I’ve taken the liberty of preparing the bill.”

Tim slid it over to her, across the photographs. Erica brought her blue purse into her lap, and started rummaging through it.

“You single?” she asked.

_Oh, boy. Here we go._

If Erica wound up propositioning him, it would not be the first time a client had done such a thing.

And if he took her up on it, it wouldn’t be the first time for that, either.

But only after the check exchanged hands. After they weren’t in a working relationship anymore.

Tim had ethics.

“Yeah,” Tim said, his voice and his face as listless as humanly possible.

She flipped through the pages of her checkbook. “I ain't surprised. Guy like you, taking dirty pictures of people… You’re more red flag than person.”

“You’re right,” Tim said, still listless. “I should get married like you.”

Erica regarded him with disgust unbridled, before she started writing the check.

There was more to that marriage question, though. In the fourteen years since Game Seven, Tim Drake had dated Harper Row, married her, had a kid with her… and divorced her.

Erica Hempstead tore the check out of her checkbook, crumpled it up, and threw it at Tim.

“Choke on it, you prick.”

She got up, and stomped out of the cramped office, her footsteps pounding the wood floor as though it had made aspersions against her ancestry and her status as landed gentry. And she slammed the door on the way out.

Tim picked up the wadded check, flattened it on the desk, endorsed it, and slid it into the top drawer.

There was a knock on the door.

_She just paid me, so I don’t have to be nice._

“FUCK OFF!” Tim yelled.

A man’s voice from the other side of the door called in replay.

“It’s nice to know Bruce’s people skills rubbed off on you, Rob.”

_Rob?_

The only person who called him that was…

“Conner?”

The door opened, and in stepped Conner Kent, wearing a dark blue suit and looking like a million bucks.

“Hey, Tim.”

Tim got up from the desk, and yelled “DUDE!”

He ran over and gave Conner as big a hug as he could manage. Conner was half-Kryptonian, so he could take it.

“What are you doing here?” Tim asked after he broke the embrace. “I haven’t seen you in ages!”

“Eh, I was in the neighborhood.”

“You look great,” Tim said.

“Well,” Conner said, “you can thank the friendly folks at ARGUS.”

Conner reached behind his head, and Tim heard a click.

What was, just a moment before, the face of a handsome man in his early thirties was now the face of the same teenager with whom Tim had partnered up with in Young Justice over a decade and a half ago. The one who was sullen and stoic. Until he discovered Cassandra Cain, at which point he’d gotten smiley and hopeful.

And…

_Jesus Christ, I feel old…_

Conner hit the holographic projector on the back of his head again. Early-Thirties Conner was back.

“So anyway,” Conner said. “How’s the kid?”

“Mattie-Ann?” Tim asked. “She’s great.”

Which was a relative term. Matilda Ann Row-Drake was an almost supernaturally quiet child. Prone to reading by herself as opposed to screwing around with other kids, either in person or online.

If Tim remembered that he himself was like that at her age, then he showed no indication. Mattie-Ann was staying at Grandma and Grandpa Drake’s this week.

“And she’s how old?” Conner asked.

“Nine.”

_“Nine. _ Right.”

And now the awkward silence portion of our program.

“Hey,” Conner said. “How about we take a walk?”

“A walk?”

“Yeah.”

“In Gotham.”

“Yeah.”

“At night.”

“Yeah,” Conner said. “If we get in trouble, I have every confidence The Signal will come and save us.”

Tim smiled. “Alright, then.”

He got his black suit jacket off of the coat rack that held Slam’s old fedora. He put it on over his green t-shirt, and walked out of the office with Conner.

“You talk to Cassie anymore?” Tim asked on the three floor trek to the street.

“Wonder Girl?” Conner asked. “Not lately. Why?”

“No reason,” Tim said.

In truth, Cassandra _“Wonder Girl” _Sandsmark had loved, lusted after, pined over, and cried over Conner Kent since the first moment she had laid eyes on him. Conner, not precisely the brightest bulb back then, had no idea, and walked off with a girl who had the same first name. Tim liked to keep tabs on his old friends, and at the moment, both Conner and Cassie were single. And yet nothing insisted on happening between the two.

_God, Cassie’s in her thirties, and she’s still “Wonder Girl.”_

As soon as they made it into the cool evening air of Gotham City, Conner immediately made a b-line for the parking lot at the back of the building, and Tim followed.

“Seriously though,” Tim said as they walked into the parking lot. “Why are you here?”

“An hour ago,” Conner said, “I was given an assignment by the ARGUS director herself. I’m on the lookout.”

“For what?” Tim asked. “Some _thing _or some _one?”_

“That,” Conner said, “is a complicated question. But I will tell you this…”

Tim noticed that Conner had walked them both to Tim’s old, shitty green Honda.

“What I’m looking for,” Conner said, “is in the trunk of your car.”

Tim blinked. “Huh?”

“Oh, yeah,” Conner said. “I used my X-Ray Vision on my way down here. It’s a habit I picked up. Spy, and all. And you got what ARGUS needs.”

“ARGUS needs my metal bo staff and my spare tire?”

The humor slid off of Conner’s face.

“Open the trunk, Tim.”

Tim narrowed his eyes. Conner only called him Tim when he was trying to sound, well, adult.

“Fine,” Tim said, fishing his car keys out of the pocket of his jeans. “Whatever.”

He opened the trunk, and looked at Conner. “See? Nothing to…”

Something caught the corner of Tim’s eye, and he peered into the trunk.

There was...something there that wasn’t supposed to be. It was a series of shapes and colors until Tim put them together into something he recognized. At which point felt the interior of his entire abdominal cavity try to huddle in on itself.

He heard the sound of sirens off in the distance, and he knew--just _knew-- _they were there for him.

“So,” Conner said. “You, uh… You wanna tell me why you have a dead Kaznian diplomat in your trunk, there, Rob?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real life has bumped up against Thanksgiving, so I won't be around for a while. Chapter 5 drops on Monday, December 2. See ya then!


	5. Soldier-in-Blue

**Chapter 5: Soldier-in-Blue**

Officer Jimmy DeLongpre was working the front desk at GCPD’s thirty-eighth precinct on the mainland, just a half a mile away from the East End. The thirty-eighth was a ramshackle building with leaky pipes that got frigid in the winter and sweltering in the summer. The four story building squatted on Fillmore Avenue like a medieval peasant hunched over a riverbank, jealously protecting their patch of mud and shit.

He was filling in time-off requests on a PC that was about ten years out of date as Officer Emil North was talking his ear off about the arrest he had made earlier that evening.

“So we get there, right?”

“Right.”

“And these two guys are standing over an open trunk with a dead body inside. Now the smaller one--”

“You mean there were two dead bodies?”

“What?”

“You said the smaller one.”

“No, I mean the two guys on the outside, standing over the body in the trunk.”

“Okay.”

“So the smaller one, he looks like he’s gonna shit a brick. But the _bigger _one? The one in the suit? He puts one hand up, and reaches inside his suit jacket with the other.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Damn right, _‘Oh, shit.’ _ I draw on the motherfucker, tell him to put his hands down or he’s gonna be the second corpse in this street, right?”

“Right.”

“And the guy… he just _smiles _at me. Like I’m aiming a fucking water pistol at him. Like he had nothing to worry about.”

“Did he?”

“Have something to worry about? Fuck yes, he had something to worry about. I was gonna put a hole in his head so I could see through to the other side. But he’s looking at me like I’m a kid using my fingers as a pretend gun. He reaches into his suit jacket, and guess what he takes out?”

“What?”

Officer North cut himself off before he started giggling. “A… A fucking _ARGUS _badge.”

Officer DeLongpre stopped typing, and looked up at him. “An ARGUS badge?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought they didn’t exist. Like a spook story supervillains tell each other. Rob a bank wearing a mask and, like, the fuckin’ _Flash _comes in, then ARGUS is gonna blacksite you. Waterboard you and hook your nuts up to a car battery.”

“That’s what I thought. I ask the guy ‘ _What else did you find in the toy store you want to show me? ‘Cause that badge don’t mean shit.’” _

“You said that?”

“I _said _it.”

“And what did he say back?”

A war broke out across Officer North’s face. His humiliation tugged at the corners of his mouth while the awe-inspiring spectacle of how cool what he had undergone made his brown eyes sparkle.

“He walks up--I still got my piece on him, you understand?”

“Uh-huh.”

“He walks up, looks me dead in the eyes, and tells me…”

Officer North trailed off. He closed his eyes hard, appearing to Officer DeLongpre as though he was trying to get every syllable perfect.

“He tells me… _‘If you don’t lower your weapon, if you give me any more trouble, then I will have your badge, I will have your gun, and I will have your soul from your body. And for that last one, I’ll reach up your ass to take it.’”_

For the second time, Officer DeLongpre ceased typing. “He _said _that?”

“Hand to fucking God,” Officer North said, proceeding to make a quick sign of the cross to ward away the consequences of his blasphemy. “He tells me to take his badge and run it. So I go back to the cruiser and do that, leaving Darrell outside to keep the two suspects company. I run it through the cruiser’s computer. Thirty seconds later, I get radioed by _Commissioner Montoya!”_

Officer DeLongpre felt himself go cold at the sound of Commissioner Renee Montoya’s very name. She was head of MCU for ten years before she took Jim Gordon’s old job, and her reputation as a blood-and-thunder straight arrow preceded her. She didn’t exactly clean up corruption in the GCPD, but she did make the corrupt cops under Sofia Gigante’s payroll take more steps to stay hidden.

“No shit,” he finally said.

“No. Shit. The Commish tells me to do whatever Mister ARGUS Agent says.”

“And that’s why there are two people in my lockup?” Officer DeLongpre asked. “Each on separate sides of the bars?”

“That’s right… _Your _lockup. Like you own the _deed _or something.”

The gray phone on the desk next to Officer DeLongpre’s left elbow rang. Fitting with the antiques shop timewarp under which the Thirty-Eighth Precinct fell, it was a landline.

He picked it up. “DeLongpre, Thirty-Eighth.”

It was Officer Julia Martinez. She ran the Pawn Shop Unit out of the Thirty-Eighth.

And she sounded… excitable. 

Skipping past the pleasantries, Officer Martinez cut straight to business.

“The Deputy Mayor’s coming in.”

Officer DeLongpre froze. He didn’t even change the expression on his face.

“The Deputy Mayor?”

Hearing that, even Officer North looked terrified.

“Yeah,” Officer Martinez said over the phone. “Caught it over the radio. She doesn’t even have her security detail with her. She’s on the warpath, Jimmy. Get the lead out.”

She hung up.

Officer DeLongpre stood up straight after he hung up the phone. He remembered a t-shirt he saw when he was a kid that said _“Jesus is coming, look busy.”_

The two officers both began cleaning stray papers and empty paper coffee cups from the surface of the humble front desk inside this humble precinct.

Officer North had sunk so low as to polish his badge with the cuff of his dark blue uniform shirt when the Deputy Mayor of Gotham City entered through the front door.

It looked as though she had been dragged from home to come down here. She was a woman in her early thirties with chestnut brown hair done in a ponytail that draped over her left shoulder. She had put on a blue blazer and a white blouse, but from the waist down, she was in jeans and black sneakers.

And in Officer DeLongpre’s (admittedly unasked for) opinion, the Deputy Mayor was fine as hell.

She walked up to the front desk, cold fury in her blue eyes. She put her hands on the surface, either unaware or indifferent to the clutter upon it. And she started tapping the index finger of her left hand.

Officer DeLongpre felt it was incumbent upon him to break the ice.

“Do, uh--”

The Deputy Mayor held up her right hand to silence him, while the index finger of her left hand still tapped upon the surface of her desk.

Officer DeLongpre was not entirely unfamiliar with the look plastered on the Deputy Mayor’s face. He had had quite a few girlfriends in his life who had worn that look. The look that said they were trying to check their emotions before they said something they could not take back.

Until finally, after what seemed like a full minute, the Deputy Mayor of Gotham City finally said:

“I would like to see my dipshit ex-husband please.”

And at once, Officer DeLongpre got it. Nothing that had transpired to make the Deputy Mayor mad had been his fault or the fault of the precinct.

But he still stood up straight.

“Right this way,” he said.

And with that, he led Deputy Mayor Harper Row to the lockup.

* * *

Harper _“Bluebird” _Row was the third-to-last of the men and women under Batman’s influence that fought Harmonia and Nemesis to retire.

First, technically, had been Stephanie _“Spoiler” _Brown, and to say that she had _“retired,” _could be construed as misleading. On the night of Game Seven, Stephanie had dropped the man responsible to his death, and in the years since, it had been a topic of debate as to whether or not Stephanie had intended to do so. For the man responsible was Arthur _“Cluemaster” _Brown, Stephanie’s abusive father. Stephanie had apparently left Gotham City that very night, and hadn’t been seen within the city limits since.

Second was Tim _“Robin” _Drake, who retired three months later to pursue a career as a private investigator. Bruce Wayne had been, in Harper’s estimation, surprisingly cool with this.

Third was Kate _“Batwoman” _Kane, who left Gotham City a year and a half after that, lighting out for a place that could not be found on any map.

Fourth had been Harper herself another three years after.

Fifth, in a shock to everyone, was Batman. Bruce Wayne, in a show of humility that Dick Grayson had told her during a drunken phone conversation was becoming more and more common in the billionaire ex-playboy, copped to being too old for the job, leaving his title to his adopted daughter Cassandra Wayne.

And finally, a scant three months after that had been Bruce’s wife Selina, who hung up her Catwoman gear because doing the superhero thing just wasn’t fun without Bruce.

Barbara _“Oracle” _Gordon and Cassandra _“Black Bat” _Wayne were the last two who were still active.

But Harper hung on longer than anyone had expected her to. She hung on past Game Seven, past Tim’s retirement, and past she and Tim Drake’s elopement three years later. And while Tim was solving cases in the East End, Bluebird had earned full membership in the Justice League.

In fact, the one thing that would lead to Harper Row’s retirement was the most reasonable of all. And, strangely enough, the one thing that Harper had never envisioned for herself the first time she put on the costume.

Harper Row got pregnant.

Matilda Ann Row-Drake came into the world nine years ago. Harper retired from the Justice League when the pregnancy test came back positive. She’d been a member for three years at that point.

She’d saved up quite a bit from her League stipend, and being a detective in the East End had worked unexpectedly well for her husband. But during the pregnancy, she’d been left to wonder what she’d do with the rest of her life. She wanted to be a good mom, but that didn’t entail staying at home.

Once Mattie Ann was a year old, Harper went back to doing freelance electrical work on Bleake Island. It was at this juncture that both she and Tim each noticed how the other had changed.

When Tim Drake had been Robin, he’d been a bundle of neuroses who openly complained that he was letting _“The Robin Legacy” _down when Lady Vic’s henchmen punched him in the face. Studying under Slam Bradley and becoming a PI in the East End, however, had slicked back the fly-aways and sanded down the rough edges. Harper did not notice the exact moment that the Tim Drake that worried about _everything _became the Tim Drake that wasn’t fazed by _anything _, but such a metamorphosis had occurred. Human pain upset him back in the day, but now?

Harper, for her part, got angrier and angrier as the years went on.The only reason she did freelance electrical and IT work on Bleake Island was because her customers couldn’t afford normal means. Game Seven had hit Gotham City hard, and it seemed Bleake Island had borne the most visible brunt of the city’s exodus. The factories on Bleake hadn’t been particularly bustling to begin with, but barely a week went by when she didn’t hear a sad story about hours getting cut and jobs getting outsourced. Factories slowly started going dim. 

Bleake Island was becoming a ghost town.

The one thing that being Bluebird taught Harper was that people wish for someone to save them, never realizing that they, themselves, could be that someone. Once that realization is reached, all things are possible. So instead of feeling sorry for the island upon which she was born, she decided she’d try to help. It was a little at first, just driving kids to school. But within a year, that turned into organizing neighborhood watches, blood drives, job fairs, fundraisers for school supplies.

And this was how Bluebird the superhero became Harper Row the community organizer.

But it reached the point that Harper Row and Tim drake just… didn’t… recognize each other.

There was no moment that ended it. There was no grand betrayal or big blowout fight. They had just become different people.

Tim and Harper divorced the year Mattie Ann turned five.

Two-and-a-half years ago, the next stage of Harper’s life began.

A Burnside bartender named Alysia Yeoh, who had done similar organizing work for that neighborhood, had a truly crazy and wholly unlikely idea.

Alysia Yeoh was going to run for Mayor of Gotham City. And she needed someone to help with the campaign. Particularly in Bleake Island, where there were still enough votes to matter, provided they could be mobilized. This was where Miss Yeoh asked Harper to come in.

Once Alysia and Harper swiftly disposed of the idea of running as an Independent (because neither women were foolish, and they knew how numbers and split votes worked) it was decided that she would run as a Democrat.

This meant she would be sharing a primary with the heavy favorite, one Fred Moxon. Moxon was handsome, white, and non-threateningly Protestant. He had two adorable kids, a beautiful wife, came from a wealthy family, and plied his trade as an attorney. Alysia Yeoh, on the other hand, was a transgender bartender of Singaporean descent who was married to a woman named Jo. She didn’t even go to church, which was something that gave her trouble in the early going.

The initial polls did not look good for Alysia, but Fred Moxon opted to foolishly implode his own campaign.

For during a radio interview with Jack Ryder, Moxon deadnamed Alysia Yeoh.

The outcry from Gotham City’s trans community, as well as the cisgender non-asshole community was deafening. In the early stages of the aftermath, Moxon refused to acknowledge the controversy, his campaign manager no doubt working from a playbook twenty years old, thinking that the trans community was but a mere sliver of the population and could hold no real influence. It was only when he was called out for his insensitivity in a Gotham _Gazette _front-page editorial penned by Vicki Vale herself did Moxon finally apologize.

And all the while, Alysia kept her head down, canvassing door-to-door in low turnout areas with untapped potential. Because as much as people don’t like assholes, people weirdly dislike people complaining about assholery even less.

Alysia Yeoh became the Democratic Mayoral nominee in a landslide.

From there, it was on to Republican challenger Ezekiel _“Zeke” _Lautner. Lautner was old Gotham money, his family fortune stemming primarily from a series of savvy real estate investments made by his grandfather before the Great Depression hit. And if one would have thought that Mister Lautner would have learned from Fred Moxon’s mistakes, one would be grievously mistaken.

Lautner did not take Alysia seriously to the extent that he refused to hold the customary three televised debates with her. Whether he looked down on her because she was a member of the working class, or because she was a woman, or because she wasn’t white, or because she was trans is difficult to say. But what was plain as day, however, was that Alysia showed up at the televised debates unopposed, where the Gotham City voting public became acquainted with her wit, her intelligence, and her personality.

Zeke Lautner, meanwhile, kept hitting his stump speech about how his son had been murdered at the hands of Black Manta during the siege of The Undying. But the press had become so disenchanted with this oft repeated refrain that some even accused him of exploiting his son’s death for political gain.

Alysia Yeoh won the general election by two percentage points. Lautner didn’t concede for a week. The thirty-six-year-old Alysia became the second youngest Mayor in Gotham City history, and the first trans mayor of a major metropolitan area in America.

Gotham City is an odd place, in terms of the position of Deputy Mayor. They weren’t on the ticket, but rather they were selected by the Mayor the day after the inauguration, and voted upon by the city council.

Newly-minted Mayor Alysia Yeoh selected Harper Row to be her second in command. After a couple of days of internal deliberation, Harper accepted.

The city council vote went along party lines, which meant Harper was in.

And that is how Harper Row became Deputy Mayor of Gotham City ten months ago.

* * *

Officer DeLongpre led Harper to the cramped and depressing three cell lockup on the other side of the building. He held the door open for her.

She peered inside to see a tall, handsome man in a suit with his phone to his ear. It took her a couple of seconds to recognize that it was her former Young Justice teammate (and current Superman) Conner Kent.

And right there, in the middle cell, sitting on the cot, right ankle on his left knee, was her ex-husband Tim Drake.

Tim did not seem to be the slightest bit perturbed by the fact that he had been arrested for murder. He just had that dim, quizzical look on his face that he’d had when the car broke down, when Mattie Ann needed to go to the doctor, when she served him with divorce papers…

Harper turned to Officer DeLongpre. “Thank you, that’ll be all.”

Officer DeLongpre lowered his bushy black eyebrows as he looked from her, to Tim, and back to her.

“You, uhhh… You sure that’s wise?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Harper said. “Confucius said it. That’s how wise it is.”

Officer DeLongpre didn’t know what to make of that, but he left all the same.

Once the door closed behind him, Harper turned to Conner.

“Agent Kent of ARGUS.”

Conner looked at her, his phone still at his ear. “Deputy Mayor Row of Gotham City.”

They both curtsied to one another, because that’s the kind of friends they were.

At which point, Harper turned to Tim.

“Murder,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Who did you piss off that they would try to pin a murder on you?”

Tim shrugged. “What, you don’t think I did it?”

“If you did it,” Harper said, “you wouldn’t have been so sloppy. From what little I’ve heard, you opened the trunk just as the cops were rolling up?”

“Yeah,” Tim said. “I must be slipping in my old age. _Usually _when I kill a guy...”

Harper’s gaze blanked as she regarded Tim. It seemed that the entire time that she’d known him, Tim Drake had tried to appear cooler than he actually was. The act was tired now. Not as in stale, but as in Tim literally looked tired when he was trying to pull it off.

_At least when he was eighteen, the flop-sweat was funny…_

“You alibied?” Harper asked.

“For when?” Tim asked in return. “I don’t know the time of death. I could have been in any number of places until that’s determined. And even then, my job being what it is, it’s hard to have an alibi when you’re staking out hotel rooms for cheating husbands for hours on end.”

“So you’re boned,” Harper said. Again, not a question.

He shook his head.

“I don’t even know who the guy is,” Tim said. “I’m not saying this is gonna go to trial, but even if it did, I have no motive.”

Conner, phone still to his ear, said “Alexei Matsurka. Kaznian. He was supposed to be buying a piece of high-tech black market weaponry for Duke Arkosh Kobash in a theoretical assassination attempt on the eventual Justice League envoy that’s going to Kaznia to try and bring peace to the region.”

“Define _‘high-tech,’” _Harper said.

Conner shifted on the soles of his feet. “That’s classified.”

Harper folded her arms. “Conner, Barbara Gordon was in the hospital waiting room when I gave birth to my daughter. Nothing she wants to know stays classified for long. Either you tell me now, or she tells me later.”

Conner frowned, and said “Shadow Density.”

Harper felt her shoulders slump. That had been a thing for the last year since she’d been sworn in. She’d get so stressed doing her job that she bunched up her shoulders all throughout the day. Only something shocking would get her to slouch and relax.

“No fucking way,” she said. “The Kaznians want to buy their own Game Seven?”

“We’re missing something,” said Tim.

Harper looked at him. “What are we missing?”

Tim looked at Conner. “Dude, is anyone listening in?”

Conner took his phone away from his ear and apparently, from Harper’s perspective, used his Super Hearing to listen for recording devices.

After a second of that, Conner said “Nah, Rob, we’re all good,” before putting his phone back to his ear.

Tim then looked back to Harper.

“Whoever put that body in the trunk of my car had to know Conner was going to come looking for it,” he said. _“His_ Kaznian assignment showing up in _my_ trunk? And there’s nothing connecting an ARGUS agent to a low-rent private eye except one thing.”

“Which is?”

“Our Young Justice days,” Tim said, “Whoever did this knows that Conner’s Superman, and I used to be Robin.”

Harper’s shoulders slumped even further.

“Something’s coming,” Tim said. “Something _big.”_

Harper took in a deep breath, and let it out, letting it blow out her cheeks in an attempt to shed her anxiety. It did not work.

“Mattie Ann is at your mom and dad’s for the week,” Harper said.

“That she is.”

“You think they might need some backup? Some surveillance?”

“Way ahead of you,” Conner said. “A couple of Leaguers were dispatched to the Drakes’ apartment building an hour ago.”

Harper squinted, and said “Doesn’t your ARGUS job mean you can’t be in the Justice League?”

“It does,” Conner said. “But Jinny Hex is in the League, and she owes me a favor.”

“So who’s looking after them? Please don’t tell me it’s someone who sucks like Matter-Eater Lad.”

Conner sighed. “He’s thirty-eight years old, Harper. He’s Matter-Eater _Man _now, and he’s trying his best.”

Harper nodded. “Right.”

_“Right.”_

“I’m sorry.”

“You _should _be.”

“But still…”

“Rosabelle Mendez and Naomi McDuffie,” Conner said.

Harper nodded a second time, trying to hide how impressed she was. Those two hit hard. Anyone looking to start some shit would have a fight on their hands.

“There,” Conner said. “You happy now, you little shit?”

“Oh, I’m the happiest,” Harper said as she pointed to her blank face. “You can see by my smile.”

Conner gave her a smile of his own. Only then was it returned.

“You seen Cassie Sandsmark lately?”

“No,” Conner said. “No, I haven’t. Why?”

_Don’t tell him, _she thought. _If he hasn’t figured it out by now..._

Harper turned back to Tim and asked “Now what?”

Conner came alive. Apparently the person for whom he’d plastered his phone to the side of his face had now deigned to speak to him.

Harper and Tim watched this one side of the conversation.

“Yes,” Conner said. “Director Avesta, I… Oh, you _have? _... Well, I’m not gonna lie, that makes matters a lot less complicated… Yeah, it’s… Yeah… Thank you…”

Conner was about to open his mouth to say Bye, but this Director Avesta person had apparently hung up.

As he put his phone in the pocket of his suit jacket, he looked at Tim.

“This is officially an ARGUS investigation,” Conner said. “And being as you’re the only suspect, you are now remanded to ARGUS custody.”

“Define _‘ARGUS custody,’” _Tim said.

Conner shrugged.

“I dunno. Wayne Manor sound good to you?”

* * *

Black Bat and The Signal arrived in the Batcave beneath Wayne Manor (informally dubbed _“Batcave South” _to prevent confusion with the second Batcave beneath the RH Kane Building) twenty minutes ago.

Cassandra and Selina stripped off Violet Paige’s Mother Panic costume, and set her up inside the Kryptonian regeneration chamber in the medical bay.

Violet had not one, but _two _hairline fractures in her skull, both running parallel to one another. One cracked vertebrae. Six broken ribs. Multiple bruised organs, including the stomach, both kidneys, and pancreas. And she had lost three pints of blood from her nose and mouth, as well as from internal bleeding.

And so Cassandra, Bruce, and Selina watched Violet Paige’s unconscious form as they stood in the doorway of the medical bay. Cassandra noticed that the two seemed freshly showered, and that their clothes smelled clean.

_At this time of night?_

_Heaven only knows what they were doing before we got here._

Not that it wasn’t obvious what Cassandra herself had been doing earlier in the evening. With the exception of her mask, she was still in her Black Bat costume.

“The machine requires her to be comatose,” Bruce said. “But for how long, I really don’t know. Everyone responds to this machine differently.”

Cassandra had to wonder how he knew that, being as, to her knowledge, Bruce was the only person who had ever been inside the damned thing.

Bruce waved her and Selina into the small corridor between the medical bay and the Batcave proper.

“First thing’s first,” he said, before he wrapped Cassandra in a hug. Thus began the contest, partaken in since the adoption, of who could squeeze harder.

Cassandra won.

“How are you holding up?” Bruce asked after the hug broke.

“Fine,” Cassandra said. “Yeah, dad, I’m fine.”

“It’s just…”

Bruce’s head turned toward the door to the med bay from which they had just emerged. But his eyes stayed on her.

He knew what Violet had meant to Cassandra, once upon a time.

“It’s okay,” Cassandra said. “I knew just where to take her. If you could survive your run-ins with Bane and Damian, she can survive this.”

Thankfully, to dissolve the tension and get that look of concern off her dad’s face, Selina spoke up.

“How was the show?” she asked.

By law, Selina was Cassandra’s adoptive mother. But unlike Bruce, Cassandra never used the familial nickname. She didn’t call Selina _“mom.” _ Neither of them were comfortable with it, if for no other reason than it would interfere greatly with the Cool Aunt vibe that Selina tried so hard to put out.

And Cassandra knew that if there were anyone from the old network to which Selina Wayne would have consented to being identified as a mother figure, it certainly would not have been her.

Cassandra shut the thought down before it slithered across the S in the first name of her long lost best friend…

“It went great.”

“What’s next?” Selina asked. “Show-wise.”

“Ummmmm… The Bellagio Theater is putting on this adaptation of an old video game about this alcoholic cop with amnesia who wakes up in a hotel room and has to solve a murder.”

“Hmm.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s it called?”

“The name escapes me,” Cassandra said. “Something about heaven and dance music, I don’t know.”

Cassandra merely had to _sense _her dad shifting on his feet to know that he was growing impatient.

“Anyway,” Cassandra said, “shall we?”

With that, the three walked to the open expanse of the Batcave. The little corridor let out near the Batcomputer, which took up the far end of the platform upon which the Batmobile rested.

Duke Thomas, holding his yellow and black signal helmet beneath his right arm, was leaning up against the car.

Bruce walked up to him.

“Detective Thomas,” he said, sticking out his hand. “A pleasure to meet you.”

Duke didn’t say anything. Didn’t reach out. Just stood and stared at Bruce with wide, uncomprehending eyes.

Though they both knew each other by name and reputation, tonight was the first time that Duke Thomas and Bruce Wayne had actually met.

He’d been all-business helping them get Violet’s unconscious body out of the back of the Batmobile, but now that the worst had passed, Duke was left to his own thoughts and devices.

And from what Cassandra could see, Duke’s thoughts and devices left him on the fragile, disintegrating edge of geeking out.

A moment passed, and a long one, before Duke reached out and took Bruce’s hand with both of his own, dropping his Signal Helmet on the concrete at his feet. Duke seemed only vaguely aware of this.

“Sir,” Duke said, vigorously shaking Bruce’s hand. _“Sir,” _he said again, “it’s… it’s an _honor.”_

“Thank you,” Bruce said, his stony face not betraying whether or not he knew what he had gotten himself into.

“I’m--”

“You’re Duke Thomas,” Bruce said. “The Signal. And a detective in the GCPD homicide division. Wife named Riko, son named Jay, daughter named Izzy. And you have a case clearance rate of ninety-five percent, well above anyone else in your precinct.”

The smile that Duke had on his face was so wide that the flesh covering his cheekbones rose to such an extent that his eyes almost disappeared.

“And you’re Metahuman,” Bruce said. “Member of the Justice League in good standing. You have the ability to process light. Read it in a way that you can see what happened in the room after the fact.”

“That’s right,” Duke said.

“And no doubt you’ve used that to assist in your capacity as an officer of the law.”

“Well--”

“But isn’t that cheating?”

Duke swayed backward on his feet. Only the most trained eye would have seen it…. Which meant that Cassandra, Bruce, and Selina _all _saw it. It was as though he’d literally been taken aback.

That, or he’d just been punched.

“Umm… What?” Duke asked.

“Clues need to be found,” Bruce said. “Theories need to be formulated. Leads and suspects have to be tracked down. But you can just watch what happened and work backwards. It… just seems like cheating to me.”

The open-mouthed smile that had been on Duke’s face mere seconds before now sagged into dismay and shock.

And Cassandra literally had to reach up with her gloved right hand, put it to her mouth, and wipe the smile off of her face before she said:

“Relax, Duke, he’s joking.”

Duke looked from Bruce’s stony, passive face to Cassandra and asked “How can you tell?”

“Because he’s standing too far away to be serious,” Cassandra said.

“That,” Selina said, “and the fact that he said it at all. He’s getting better about insulting people. We had Guy Gardner over to the house a couple of years back to negotiate the Wayne Foundation’s yearly donations to the Justice League, and Bruce here managed to make it through the whole three hours without calling him a dirty word.”

Selina put her hand on her husband’s shoulder, smiled, and said “Next, we’re housebreaking him.”

“It’s Guy Gardner,” Bruce said. “He deserves to be called dirty words.”

“Oh,” Duke said.”

“I really was joking.”

“Ohhhhhhhhh.”

“It’s justice. There _is _no cheating.”

“Umm… Damn _skippy?”_

“So,” Bruce said. “What do we know?”

A tiny sprout of anger popped up in Cassandra’s chest. Like a mole in a Whack-a-Mole machine. 

She understood the necessity of bringing Violet here. Bruce was the only one who could discreetly help her.

But she still dreaded it.

She dreaded it because if he were given even the slightest opportunity, he would swoop in as though he were in charge. She’d made it through as the only Bat in Gotham… until tonight.

He had given her the mantle of The Bat six years ago. And for six years, she had read her dad’s body language. His every step, his every gesture, his every stony silence screamed that he still wanted to be Batman.

_But…_

Cassandra gave into the thought.

_But this is _my _city…_

Duke told Bruce and Selina everything. About the May-Day, and about the special grenade the as-yet-unidentified assailant used that nullified The Signal’s light-reading ability. Being that The Signal’s ability was not public knowledge, this could only mean that the person who beat Mother Panic within an inch of her life knew the secret identities of Duke Thomas and Cassandra Wayne, and most likely others.

Bruce opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by a loud crackle of static from Batcave South’s overhead speakers.

Which could only mean it was Cullen Row.

“I’m coming down,” Cullen said.

The four of them were silent as the elevator came down from Wayne Manor’s study.

Cullen walked in, opened his mouth, but stopped to look at Duke.

“I haven’t met you yet, have I?”

“No,” Duke said.

Cullen's eyes took about a second too long gently perusing the handsome gentleman in front of him. “I’ll introduce myself later.”

“Cullen,” Bruce said with some bass in his voice. “What is it?”

“Right,” Cullen said. “Tim Drake’s been arrested for _murder, _so, uh… yeah…”

* * *

In the darkness of the sewers beneath Gotham City, a lone figure walked.

Traversing the thin line of concrete that bordered a foul-smelling river of filth, this person stood six feet tall. They were clad in in segmented armor from head-to-toe, obscuring their face, even obscuring their gender.

The armor was blue, high-tech, made of enhanced solid Rhetora polymer. It was segmented into plates over a gray spider silk bodysuit, and this armor came to a head, both literally and figuratively, with a smooth blue helmet that featured glowing yellow eye-slits and two extensions at the top that housed antennae.

Strange… Those extensions kind of looked like bat ears.

The Soldier-in-Blue walked in darkness, but the eye slits on their helmet allowed them to see in the dark.

In one hand hovered a holographic map of this particular section of the Gotham City sewer system. And in the other was the Soldier-in-Blue’s first trophy from this most sacred, most holy of missions:

The red lens they had taken from Mother Panic’s shattered helmet.

The Soldier-in-Blue did not train their entire life to have fun.

The Soldier-in-Blue did not come to this dying cesspool of a city for mere satisfaction.

But the Soldier-in-Blue had to admit to themself that beating Violet Paige into a rippling puddle of bitchy goth paste had been both fun _and _satisfying.

Duke Thomas would fall next. Or Cassandra Wayne.

And _then _they’d get down to business.

They came to the marker on their map. They looked to their left, and saw a dull gray concrete wall that had been defaced by graffiti. Whoever tagged this wass this far down must have been blessed by the inability to smell the shit from which they stood mere inches away.

The Soldier-in-Blue balled up their fist, reared, back, and punched through the wall.

The flood of green light that resulted was all the evidence they needed. They got what they came for. They would radio in with confirmation.

Or they would try to.

Because as soon as the Soldier-in-Blue exited the holographic map, they found that someone was already trying to contact them.

They checked to see who was radioing in, where they were coming from.

And all they got back was “UNKNOWN FREQUENCY.”

The Soldier-in-Blue pressed a small button on their glove, and a digitally distorted voice sounded in their helmet.

**“Hello, you.”**

The Soldier-in-Blue suppressed a tremor of surprise, before responding in their own digitally distorted voice.

“Who is this?”

**“Someone who’s on your side,”** the voice said. ** “Someone who’s impressed. It’s not easy to take out Mother Panic, but you did just that.”**

“I find you,” the Soldier-in-Blue said, “I’m gutting you. Slowly.”

**“I’m a friend.”**

“I don’t have friends.”

**“I get it,”** the voice said. **“You need evidence that you and I are in the same line of work. That we want the same things. And I can give you that. I can give you something you want.”**

“And what’s that?” the Soldier-in-Blue asked.

**“Fresh meat,”** the voice said. **“You beat the shit out of Violet Paige, but you didn’t kill her. Which leads me to believe you’re just at the point-making stage… That or you’re ****_soft.”_**

“Hate to tell you,” the Soldier-in-Blue said, “I ain’t soft.”

The voice laughed.

**“Good,”** it said. ** “Because it just so happens that I want to give you a present. Come tomorrow night, you can make a big mess of unwrapping it.”**

“And what might that present be?” the Soldier-in-Blue asked.

**“My friend,”** the voice said, **“how’d you like to get your hands on Dick Grayson?”**


	6. The Robin Summit

**Chapter 6: The Robin Summit**

The morning light had to crack its knuckles and start throwing punches to get through the dim gray haze in which Gotham City found itself today. It was the kind of weather that presaged rain. It held that peculiar aura that almost _demanded _you stayed in. _Required _you to crawl back into bed. _Insisted _that you crack open a book with the covers up to your chin as you drowsed off.

But this was Gotham City. It did all that, plus blanketing the city of eight million people in a thoroughly unappealing wet dog smell.

At a little after eleven AM, one lone taxi made the journey from the mainland to Founders Island. It was an old taxi, with rust, chipped paint, and an engine that still ran on gasoline. It offended they eyes and befouled the air as it wormed its way across the Janin Bridge

And in the back seat of this taxi rode one Stephanie Brown.

She’d spent the last eleven hours on a private jet that her broker Jerry Timo provided for her. He also provided her deluxe suite at the Hilton on Founders Island.

_Jesus, _she thought. _The last time I saw that place, it was still under construction._

She chanced a look at the Gotham skyline, seeing the skyscrapers claw at the gray sky like dead fingers lunging for a moldy and fraying veil, and was delighted to learn that she did not burst into flames at the mere sight.

Stephanie Brown hadn’t been in Gotham City for fourteen years. Not since the morning after she…

**(LET HIM FALL.)**

...saw her father for the last time.

The morning after Game Seven, she took a flight out of Cyrus Pinkney International Airport, it still being operational after the Wayne Stadium disaster. She took that eleven hour flight to London, a place to which she had always wanted to travel, with forged documents under the name _“Natalie Venora,” _and two-hundred thousand dollars.

What she did not have, at the time, was a plan.

She wanted to make a life for herself after she dropped her supervillain father to his death, intentionally or unintentionally, but the cold fact was that she was a high school graduate who fled the country before she could start college. She’d taken a year to fight crime. Which meant Stephanie Brown had no marketable skills from which she could earn a living.

Except one…

Stephanie Brown could beat the shit out of people.

So the day she caught wind of London’s surprisingly robust amateur MMA scene, she volunteered almost immediately.

The cage-fighting culture in London straddled the line between _“underground” _and _“illegal.” _ They didn’t separate by weight classes or genders, and they went to a dangerous twelve rounds. It was seedy, it was bloody, and it was near-lethal.

But here’s the thing about London’s underground cage-fighters:

**None of them were trained by Selina Kyle and Cassandra Cain.**

So the cute blonde American girl who walked in off the street one day dispatched every man and woman put in front of her in swift and brutal fashion by either knocking them the fuck out, or getting them stretchered out screaming with mangled arms and broken ankles.

She fought thirty-eight people during her time as a cage-fighter, and only one of those fights went into the second round. And even that was because the girl she was fighting kept running away.

Don’t worry, Stephanie caught her.

Thirty-eight victories in eight months made her both a fine little pile of cash, as well as a certain renown among the wrong kind of people.

One of the other fighters, a guy named Donovan Berley, said that Natalie Venora had become a name on quite a few lips. Only three kinds of people were in the seats for these fights: degenerate gamblers, professional MMA scouts, and gangsters. So she was either going to become a legitimate professional fighter, or she was going to be hired muscle for shady people.

Stephanie immediately opted for hired muscle. Because becoming famous in UFC or Bellator defeated the purpose of fleeing one’s home country under an assumed name.

But she had enough cash to set her own terms, No human trafficking and no killing. That, and she was freelance.

Her first job as a bodyguard in England was for a drug dealer out of the Philippines named Tito Deng, who wanted to move Sudafed in large amounts through Anglo-Scottish border. Turns out, the Tyneside chav pieces of shit that Tito was dealing with tried to stiff him out of the medicine, and the cash.

Two of them pulled switchblades.

Thirty seconds after that, Stephanie made them _pay _for pulling switchblades with eight broken fingers and a concussion between them.

Tito Deng referred _“Natalie Venora” _to one of his close associates. That close associate referred her to yet another party. And so on and so on, for higher profile jobs and bigger amounts of money until, fourteen years later, she’d plied her trade on five continents. Up till now, when Jerry Timo set her up for bodyguarding some Kaznian who wanted to sell something in Gotham City that was so important that she successfully argued for a cut of six million dollars. Just to make sure no one started a fight.

As Stephanie leaned back in the shockingly comfortable back seat of the taxi, she remembered her high school guidance counselor who told her she wouldn’t amount to anything.

_I’m a millionaire who knows five different languages. So suck it, Mister Trowbridge._

“Where ya from?” the cabbie asked.

Stephanie’s gaze averted from the window, to the rear-view mirror, from which she could see the cabbie’s reflection.

The cabbie was an old white lady. Silver perm, blocky glasses, just how they made them in the nineties.

“What’s that?” Stephanie asked.

“I said where ya from?” the cabbie said. Or asked. One of those two.

Stephanie cast a lazy glance back out the window, seeing how Gotham City had changed and how it had stayed the same.

“Believe it or not,” she said, “I’m a hometown girl.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Well… Welcome home.”

“Thank you,” Stephanie said.

A brief lull in the conversation, before the cabbie said “Ya ain’t wearin’ purple.”

“What’s that?”

“Purple,” the cabbie said. “Ya ain’t wearin’ it.”

The cabbie took one hand off the wheel, pulled back the lapel of her denim jacket, and showed her the purple sweatshirt she was wearing, before putting her hand on the wheel again.

Stephanie looked down at the black business suit and the white blouse she was wearing. “Why should I be wearing purple?”

The cabbie squinted at Stephanie in the rear view mirror as though she’d lost her mind.

“Honey, how long’s it _been _since you were in Gotham?”

“A long time,” Stephanie said. “A long… long time.”

“Oh,” the cabbie said. “Well…”

She scratched her head before putting it back on the wheel.

“You know how in Detroit, the night before Halloween is Devil’s Night?” the cabbie asked.

“Yeah.”

“But it’s just in _Detroit. _ Nowhere else celebrates it.”

“Right,” Stephanie said. “Like how no one outside Chicago celebrates Casimir Pulaski Day.”

“Well in Gotham City,” the cabbie said, “we got something kinda like that. In Gotham, the day after Game Seven… is Spoiler Day.”

Stephanie was powerless to do anything but stare at the rear view mirror. There was a _wellspring _, a _font _of pure nothing inside her now. All emotion had a blindfold and a cigarette in anticipation of the firing squad.

“Spoiler Day,” Stephanie said in monotone.

“Yeah,” the cabbie said.

“In Detroit on Devil’s Night, they set fires,” said Stephanie. “They do that here?”

“Naw,” the cabbie said. “They just chuck watermelons off of roofs… That, and wear purple.”

“Watermelons…” Stephanie said. “Off of roofs…”

“Yup,” the cabbie said. “But ya gotta paint ‘em orange and blue first. Y’know, _Cluemaster _colors?”

Annnnnnnnnd Stephanie Brown was back there again. There on the roof of the Oakey Paper Building, the explosion of Wayne Stadium and the four blocks surrounding it still alive in her ears. She was there holding her father by the wrist as he was dangling off the edge, pleading with her to, dear God, not let him fall.

All the while, a voice inside her, stronger than the most mammoth detonation, commanded her to…

**LET HIM FALL.**

In the end, she did just that. She interrogated herself for fourteen years as to whether or not she dropped her father off the roof of that building on purpose or by accident.

And fourteen years later… she still didn’t have an answer.

It was the reason she left Gotham City, and had never come back.

It was the reason she left being a superhero behind.

It was the reason she left the woman she loved, but didn’t love her back. Not that way, anyway.

She put a stopper in that last one before it reached the face and the name of the woman in question. _That one doesn’t get to hurt me, _she thought to herself in such a way that only made it clear to her that the memory, fourteen years removed, still hurt her in a way that almost crippled her.

Stephanie wanted to open her mouth and let the nothing out. She wanted to share her internal vacuum with the woman driving this cab. She wanted her nothing to ooze all over Gotham City, making it the biggest disaster to hit the place in almost a decade and a half.

But she also, peevishly, wanted to tell the cabbie that Spoiler’s costume was _eggplant, _and not fucking _purple._

When Stephanie gazed into the rearview mirror, however, there was a hardness to the cabbie’s face.

“My son and my daughter-in-law were at Wayne Stadium when it went,” the cabbie said. “Cheerin’ on the Knights… They were tryin’ for kids. I was gonna have grandbabies. But that’s gone. _Everything’s _gone. It’s just me now.”

The nothingness inside Stephanie slowly tapered off its eruption. It slithered back through the lesion in her consciousness from whence it came.

“I tell ya this, though,” the cabbie said. “I ever meet Spoiler? I’m gettin’ down on my Goddamned knees and kissin’ her fuckin hand for offin’ that Cluemaster prick.”

* * *

It was Cassandra’s idea.

Six months ago, Carrie Kelley had successfully fought off three muggers who tried to shake her down outside her family’s apartment in Tricorner. She got punched a few times. They got punched a few more times.

So successful was her foray into self-defense that she decided not to call the cops, nor even to tell her parents.

But that night, as she slept in her bedroom, she was awoken by a weight upon her bed. Carrie’s eyes fluttered open, and she saw on her blue comforter by the light of the street lamps outside her window, a small piece of metal…

...in the shape of a bat.

In the shadows of her bedroom, Carrie heard a voice. A high whisper on a frequency that seemed to bore into her ear drums.

_“I saw what you did… You have much to offer… You can help people… But only if I help you.”_

Carrie had looked at the Batarang, and then back into the shadows, recalling the legends that had baked into the city like grains of sand into a piece of pottery.

_They say he can’t be killed._

_They say he drinks blood._

_“What do you say?” _the voice had asked.

To which Carrie replied in a creaky, tired voice _“But… I’m just a girl.”_

Out of the shadows had stepped a beautiful Asian woman who was almost as short as Carrie herself was. She was in black plate armor and a black cape, the Bat symbol on her chest outline in yellow.

_“So am I,” _Cassandra Wayne had said.

Carrie Kelley had been Robin ever since.

Now, six months into Miss Kelley’s tenure as Black Bat’s sidekick, Cassandra had the idea that Carrie needed to talk to the three men who bore the R before her: Tim Drake, Jason Todd, and Dick Grayson.

Today (on _Spoiler Day, _of all Goddamned days), The four Robins convened in one of the many unused apartments in the RH Kane Building. Jason did not trust any of them within the confines of his own domicile, so he moved a table, four chairs, and some paper plates into one of the empties.

The pizza had just arrived, and tired-ass Tim Drake was paying for it.

“You’re not wearing purple,” the pizza girl said.

“What’s that?” asked Tim.

The pizza girl’s blue eyes gazed into the apartment, and she said “Wow, _three _of you aren’t wearing purple.”

Tim looked back into the apartment. Carrie, for her part, was wearing a purple t-shirt beneath her leather jacket.

“You’re right,” Tim said. “I’ll report to the General for reprimand. Good work, soldier.”

“Whatever,” the pizza girl said, rolling her eyes and taking the cash. “Happy Spoiler Day.”

Tim just shut the door in her face. He leaned against the wall, holding a large pepperoni with extra cheese.

“Y’know,” Tim said, “it’s not every guy whose long-lost lesbian ex gets her own informal holiday. I really should be proud.”

Jason, who was sitting next to Carrie at a table for four in black slacks and a white button-up shirt asked, immediately:

_“Murder?”_

Tim groaned, and said “Yeah.”

“You… got arrested… for _murder?”_

Tim set the pizza down on the table in front of him. “Yeah.”

“Do the cops know you’re not _interesting _enough to be a murderer?”

Tim sat down next to Dick Grayson and opened the lid of the pizza box. “The GCPD does. ARGUS doesn’t. I’m technically under their custody. Conner drove me here.”

Carrie instantly perked up at hearing Superman’s name.

Conner Kent was… _Wow… _She didn’t even _know, _but… _Goddamn…_

“And from here,” Tim continued, “we’re going to Wayne Manor. Bruce, Selina, and Cass have this fundraiser thing tonight, so someone has to babysit Mother Panic down in the Batcave South med bay… And besides, Jason, we can’t all be as interesting as you.”

“You’re fuckin’ A right,” Jason said.

Dick Grayson decided that now would be the time to say something.

“First,” Dick said, “Don’t brag about being a murderer. Second, don’t curse in front of the kid.”

“Uh, _First,” _Jason said in a nasal imitation of Dick’s voice, “I’m perfectly happy with well over half the people I killed. Those are good numbers. _Second, _don’t call Carrie _‘the kid,’ _alright? The kid has a fucking name.”

Jason held out his fist to Carrie in an attempt at cool camaraderie that Carrie judged to be fifteen years out of date. She bumped it to make him feel better. Otherwise there’d just be no living with him.

Dick for his part, cast a gaze at Carrie that looked as though it held hope for forgiveness at his breach of etiquette.

Carrie felt revulsion, and tried not to show it.

“So you can flip shit my way all you want, Grayson,” Jason said. “But I never took sides against the family, Fredo.”

To which Tim said “You sided with two Greek Goddesses to destroy the Multiverse and tried to kill me.”

“It was only one Greek Goddess,” Jason said. “The other one mind-controlled me. And yeah, I beat you up and broke your nose, but I didn’t reallyy try to _kill _you.”

Tim shrugged. “That’s… That’s actually fair.”

“Alright,” said Jason. “Maybe what I should have said was that I never sided against the family, and then tried to come off like I was a nice guy.”

“Fellas,” Tim said, “we have to do this now? We haven’t even started eating yet.”

“No,” Jason said, tilting his face toward Tim, but keeping his eyes on Dick. “No, you want to talk about _me, _Grayson? Let’s talk about _you.”_

* * *

Once upon a time, Dick Grayson was Robin. He was the first in a wave of teenage crimefighters. He was the leader of the Teen Titans.

But Dick was a moody young man; prone to melancholy, anger, and taking on more than he could possibly handle. His slapdash attention to his duties as well as his swelling attitude problem led to Batman firing him from the Robin position.

So Dick became Nightwing. Dick moved to Bludhaven.

Dick grew up.

He became a man everyone liked, and of whom everyone was proud. In the seemingly endless ping-pong match between the affections of Starfire and Oracle, the dawning of Dick Grayson’s maturity coincided with the point of time when his on-again-off-again relationship with Barbara Gordon was on again. They stayed together for over eight years while Princess Koriand’r of Tamaran finally gave up the ghost and entered into a fulfilling relationship with the Green Lantern Jessica Cruz.

But beneath this placidity and good cheer, Dick Grayson had one raw nerve. One thing that could peel away the layers of warmth and hope to reveal the anger and resentment beneath.

The line of succession.

Six years ago, Bruce Wayne called Dick Grayson to Wayne Manor to tell him something important.

He was retiring as Batman.

Dick did not have time to feel whatever emotion there was to feel at this announcement, before Bruce continued.

He did not ask Dick to take over as Batman.

Bruce did not even ask for his opinion upon who should be Batman.

Instead, Bruce said that his adopted daughter Cassandra would take over as the main Bat in Gotham City. And that he was telling Dick this before her as a measure of respect. 

But Dick Grayson did not feel respected.

Dick Grayson felt slighted.

He spared Bruce Wayne, the man he looked on as a father, a look of unalloyed disgust, before he walked out of Wayne Manor.

Of course he went to Babs to voice his frustrations. He was his girlfriend. They loved and supported one another.

It was at this point that Dick Grayson said the first of two dumb things during the course of this conversation.

_“I mean, you back me up on this, right?”_

It took her a couple of seconds of thinking, but Barbara Gordon came to realize that, no, she _couldn’t _back him up on this.

They’d both met Cassandra Cain when she was an mute, illiterate teenager, but that mute, illiterate teenager was the deadliest martial artist on Earth. And while Dick had seen the strides that Cassandra had made in terms of reading, writing, and speaking, it was Barbara who was responsible for it. At least partially, anyway. Cassandra was going to try for her GED some time in the next couple of years, and of all the things Barbara Gordon had done in her life, as Batgirl, as Oracle, helping a girl that would have been written off under any other circumstances learn to become a helpful member of society had to be up there, right? Maybe even at the top? If there was a God, that was His work, wasn’t it?

In the years since she had become more talkative, Cassandra had started jokingly calling Barbara _“Mom.”_

But during this conversation with the man she loved, Barbara didn’t think the joke was really all that funny anymore.

So she told Dick that if Cass wanted to be Batman, and Bruce wanted Cass to be Batman, then she was honorbound to both to help them.

At which point, Dick Grayson said the _second _of two dumb things during the course of this conversation.

_“Babs… Honey… I don’t think she can do it.”_

It puzzled Barbara that Dick didn’t have faith in Bruce.

It offended Barbara that Dick didn’t have faith in Cass.

But him saying it like that felt like Dick didn’t have faith in _her._

And that just pissed her off.

Dick Grayson walked into the Clock Tower that day in a loving relationship with the intelligence backbone of the superhero community.

And he left a bachelor.

As was custom among the people who knew Dick Grayson, his fellow heroes in the Justice League started a pool pertaining to his romantic future. Cyborg even tabulated the odds.

Getting back together with Barbara was at two-to-one.

Him hooking up with Starfire again was at four-to-one, even though she was dating Jessica Cruz at that moment (and, indeed, has been ever since).

Helena _“Huntress” _Bertinelli came in at five-to-one. She was single, after all.

Karen _“Power Girl” _Starr was at nine-to-one, even though she moved from New York City to Wyoming to live with Vigilante.

The fact that she was dating Roy _“Arsenal” _Harper was the only thing that stopped Donna _“Troia” _Troy from twelve-to-one odds. He complained about her presence in the pool, and didn’t stop until she was removed.

Rachel _“Raven” _Roth was at seventeen-to-one. It just seemed weird to more than a few League members that they never hooked up.

Kara _“Superwoman” _Danvers was in at twenty-to-one. Her thirst was so palpable that, in complete opposite to the Troia debacle, she _asked _to be put in the pool, and even made a bet on herself. When asked why, she said _“If I’m going to the promised land, I’m going in style.”_

Shawn _“Defacer” _Tsang was at twenty-five-to-one. She had saved his life during the Battle of Founders Island, he had convinced her to come in as a superhero, and quite a few people saw the looks she gave him when his back was turned.

And _wayyyyyyyyyyyyy _down there at forty-nine-to-one was simply _“None of the Above.”_

Of all the bettors, Jaime _“Blue Beetle” _Reyes was the only one who took that option.

Blue Beetle won a shitload of money, because that’s exactly the option Dick wound up choosing.

Since a little after The Undying’s siege of Gotham City came to a close, Dick Grayson had been the gymnastics instructor at Saint Afra’s Academy in Bludhaven. At an informal get-together with other faculty members during which they went to one of Bludhaven’s numerous dive bars, Dick Grayson met bartender Bea Bennett.

Being as Dick didn’t drink, he and Miss Bennett spoke to each other like two normal people while she served him Cherry Cokes. Dick had been single for a year at this juncture, so he didn’t feel particularly weird about asking for her number.

They dated for two years before he told her everything about his life as a superhero. Once he was convinced that she was supportive about the way he was spending his life, Dick Grayson said the smartest thing he could possibly say during the course of this conversation.

_“Y’know, if you’re cool with that, then maybe you’ll be cool with this _awesome engagement ring I bought!”

Rumors are swirling at this very moment, both in the Hall of Justice and the Watchtower, that Mister and Missus Grayson are going to be trying for a kid soon.

A year after the fight that ended her relationship with Dick Grayson (for good this time), Barbara Gordon said the following to Bruce Wayne:

_“You could have just asked him. You knew he was gonna say no. He’s a circus kid, he’s got performer in him, Drama Queen is his native language. All he wanted to do was make a big show of thinking about it before turning you down, and declaring himself his own man.”_

To which Bruce asked _“But… what if he said yes?”_

Barbara Gordon, pinching the bridge of her nose so hard that the tips of her fingers turned white, said _“Jesus H. Christ, Bruce…”_

* * *

“So yeah,” Jason said. “I’ve killed a few more people than I maybe should have. But I didn’t break anyone’s heart doing it. I respect Barbara, and I like Cass, which is more than I can say for you.”

He leaned in. “The way I see it, I’m the Sonny. I did a little bit more dirt than I was supposed to. Tim over here’s the Michael. Following in the old man’s footsteps more in the spirit than the letter. But, again, you’re the Fredo, Grayson. You took a shit in the pool because you felt like you were passed over.”

He looked at Carrie. “Guess that makes you the Connie. Go to law school, then you could at least get to be the Tom Hagen.”

Carrie just stared at him, trying to suss out the strange foreign language he was speaking.

“Y’know… _The Godfather? _Jason asked.

“I, um… I don’t even know what that is.”

Jason just looked _offended._

Carrie caught movement out of the corner of her eye.

Dick Grayson was thirty-eight years old, wearing a black leather jacket and a blue t-shirt that matched the color of his eyes. Short black hair stuck up from his head, smattered with a couple of grays here and there. If it weren’t for his smile that bunched up a little too much loose skin around his cheekbones, he’d still look as though he were in his mid-twenties.

Carrie thought he was a very pretty man.

But she noticed him looking at the three people with which he was presently sharing a room.

Jason had already made his displeasure felt.

Tim had been looking at Dick through squinting eyelids, as though he put off the stench of decaying leaves. Back before Carrie was even born, Tim and Cass were Robin and Batgirl. It wasn’t hard to see that Dick’s assessment of Cassandra Wayne’s crimefighting skills was something that Tim Drake took as a personal affront.

And as for Carrie herself?

_I saw what you did… You have much to offer… You can help people… But only if I help you._

If Dick had had his way, if he had gotten to be Batman the way he had apparently wanted to, then there was more than a fair chance that Carrie would never have gotten to wear the R.

So just from this one meeting? No. Carrie Kelley did not like Dick Grayson either.

Dick had his elbows on the table, his right forearm atop his left, darting his eyes between the three of them. It was obvious that Dick was so used to being loved in his civilian persona that sitting in a room with three people who had less than fond feelings for him was something that perturbed him greatly. Carrie couldn’t help but imagine a school bully plopping their ass down at a lunch table full of kids they’d picked on, shocked that the experience was not one of love and adulation.

Dick clenched his eyes shut, heaved a sigh, and said “I. Just. Don’t. Think. She. Can. Do. It. That’s not a crime, is it?”

Tim facepalmed. “Oh, _God...”_

Jason sat up straight in his chair. “She’s been doing it for six years, you ass. No one’s complained.”

“Yeah,” Dick said. “She’s been doing it in a post-Game Seven Gotham. The rules have changed. Back in the old days, she couldn’t have matched wits with The Riddler. She couldn’t have gone toe-to-toe with The Joker.”

“Who’s The Joker?” Carrie asked.

All three of them looked at her with what could only be described as dead-eyed shock.

“I mean I know who The Riddler is,” Carrie said. “He’s the guy who catches serial killers on TV. But I’ve never heard of The Joker.”

They still just looked at her, until Tim said “I’m pretty sure Bruce would love you to pieces if you ever met.”

“The point is,” Dick said, shaking it off, “if something big comes along, she’s going to get caught flatfooted. She’s not gonna know what to do.”

“Something big is coming right _now,” _Tim said. “I got busted for the murder of a Kaznian diplomat, and Mother Panic got taken out. There’s no way those two aren’t connected.”

“Right,” Dick said. “And what are we doing in Black Bat’s Gotham? Just sitting here and eating pizza.”

“No we’re not,” Tim said.

“Yes we are.”

“No, we’re literally not. We haven’t started eating yet.”

“Y’know it surprises me,” Dick said. “You got busted for a murder you didn’t commit, and you and Conner aren’t chasing down clues or finding suspects.”

“Because there aren’t any clues, and there are no suspects. All I can do is be here.”

“You’re just… taking it in stride. The old Tim would just be pacing back and forth, running theories through his head every ten seconds.”

“That’s because the old Tim thought getting angry solved the problem.”

“And the new Tim?” Dick asked.

“Knows that _solving the problem _solves the problem.”

“Don’t bother,” Jason said. “Everything you could pile on him just kinda falls off. Like how his ex-wife is more successful than he is.”

Tim shrugged. “She worked hard. I’m not gonna get all pissy.”

“Or how you turned down a potentially lucrative future at Wayne Enterprises to be a low-rent private eye in the worst part of town,” Dick said.

Tim shrugged yet again. “It’s honest work, it’s fun, and I don’t have to lie. Which is something you have to do if you’re that close to The Bat.”

_Carrie wanted to play! _ “Or how you must have said something horrible because your hairline is running away from your mouth as fast as it can?”

Tim actually laughed at that.

“Okay,” Jason said. “Tell me, _Nightwing, _what would _you _be doing?”

“I don’t know,” Dick said. “I don’t have all the facts yet.”

“Right,” Jason said. “And Cass does. Duke does.”

“And-and that’s another thing,” Dick said. “Duke.”

“What about him?” Carrie asked.

“In case you haven’t noticed, Gotham City isn’t The Bat’s town. It’s The _Signal’s _town. He’s the popular one around here.”

“If the job gets done,” Jason said, “if people are safe, then who gives a shit?”

_“I _give a sh--” Dick stopped when he apparently remembered a fourteen-year-old girl was in the room with them. _“I _care. Cass took The Bat, and The Bat became an afterthought in Gotham City. That’s just _wrong.”_

“The Signal placed higher in the Catco poll than you did,” Tim said.

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Oh,” Jason said, _“that _doesn’t matter, but the fact that Cass doesn’t have a museum like Wally West gives you pause.”

“I’m not auditioning for the role of Batman,” Dick said. “That’s not why I’m here.”

“Why _are _we here?” Carrie asked.

The three men looked at her.

“We’re supposed to give the new Robin advice,” Tim said.

“Okay,” Carrie said, “but I haven’t _gotten _any advice. All I’ve gotten today was a front row seat at a bitch session between three grown men who hate each other.”

All three ex-Robins were silent.

“In fact,” Carrie said, “if it weren’t for this pizza, this whole thing would have been a complete waste of time.”

Carrie reached out and grabbed a slice from the open box. It was greasy, floppy…

...and cold.

Carrie closed her eyes and sighed.

“Okay,” she said. _ “Now _this is a complete waste of time.”

* * *

Bruce had taken the day off from his construction job. He had that fundraiser at the Gotham Royal for the Pennyworth Fund tonight. Arts luminaries from around the city would be there, and Cassandra would be giving a speech.

While Selina was at work, Bruce decided to indulge in something he rarely did during the good old days, as he had considered it a diversion beneath him.

He was going to watch television.

According to his wife, he had missed what she called _“The Golden Age of Television,” _which had expired a decade past.

_“Whatever you do,” _Selina had said, _“stay away from _Game of Thrones _and _The Walking Dead. _Binge _Breaking Bad, _savor _Mad Men, _and only do one episode of _Fleabag _a day.”_

He decided to_“savor” _a third season episode of _Mad Men. _He sat up straight on the edge of the bed in the main bedroom. Nothing to drink, no snacks, two remotes lined up neatly next to his right thigh.

The whole _"relaxing"_ thing was still new to him.

He had gotten to the twenty minute mark when Selina called him

The matter was apparently so urgent that not only did she not say hello, but she didn’t even tell him what the matter was over the phone.

“Get to Wayne Tower, Sailor. _Now.”_

Bruce opted not to change out of his khakis and flannel shirt. The company had his family’s name on it, and his legend still loomed large. He’d come in wearing a tutu, and no one would dare complain.

He got into the red Ferrari, and sped to Wayne Tower. A rather excitable young man in a business suit and purple tie was there to greet him in the lobby.

“I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to finally meet you, Mister Wayne,” he said. “You’re the reason I went to business school.”

“Um… Thank you.”

“And might I say that that is a rather intriguing choice in cologne, Mister Wayne.”

Damnedest thing, though: Bruce wasn’t wearing cologne.

“That’s, um… I’m pretty sure that’s drywall… Sorry.”

“Oh.”

“Must’ve grabbed the wrong shirt by accident.”

“Oh.”

“Hey!” Selina’s voice called.

While the young man there to greet him had been wearing a purple tie, Selina herself was wearing a purple business suit.

No.

Not purple.

Eggplant.

It was Selina. She would know the difference.

They were both celebrating Spoiler Day, which was a practice that Bruce Wayne did not entirely approve of.

He, as well as everyone in his orbit, had lost sleep over whether or not Stephanie Brown had intentionally murdered her father.

And he was pretty sure he had an answer, not as though anyone ever asked him.

“Let’s go,” Selina said, and they both walked to the elevator.

They were silent for fifty-one floors of the one-hundred-three floor elevator journey. Bruce counted.

“You want to tell me what this is about?” Bruce asked.

“It has to be seen to be believed,” Selina said.

Bruce nodded. “I’m going through my memories, trying to figure out if I did something wrong, and I’m not coming up with anything.”

“I don’t think you did,” Selina said. “But if you did something wrong, I wouldn’t be calling you _‘Sailor,’ _Sailor.”

Bruce nodded again. More silence all the way up to the one-hundred-third floor CEO’s office.

The first sign that something was wrong was that Janice, Bruce’s old assistant now celebrating her twenty-third year at Wayne Enterprises, had apparently been sent home for the day.

The second sign something was wrong was the girl sitting on the couch near the glass wall of Selina’s office.

She couldn’t have been a day over fifteen. She had long, straightened black hair and dark skin. Her knees had dried blood on them, and her hands were dirty. Her brown eyes looked as though they had done more crying in the past day than sleeping.

And she was wearing a red and white cheerleading uniform. It had a bright white P on the chest, and it was dirty.

She looked at them with glassy brown eyes that told Bruce that she was either stoned or exhausted. And he was betting on the latter.

Selina walked Bruce over to her. “Okay,” she said. “Tell him… what you told me. I know it’s hard, honey, but it’s the only way that… well…”

The girl sighed. Her face didn’t change expression. It was as though a mannequin had started breathing on its own.

“My name,” the girl said in a monotone, “is Aaliyah Ramsey. Yesterday… a bunch of people came into my hometown, and killed everyone there. My mom… my dad… my friends…”

Bruce saw the P on Aaliyah’s chest, and deduced.

“Parisot,” Bruce said. “In North Carolina. I heard about it on the radio last night. It wasn’t an explosion at the power plant, I take it.”

Aaliyah’s face finally changed, faintly, to an expression of disgust. “Is _that _what they’re saying it was?”

Bruce nodded. “It’s a long way from North Carolina to Gotham. All-night bus ride?”

Aaliyah nodded, looking off at nothing.

“Okay,” Bruce said. “What brings you here? How can I help you?”

“My parents,” Aaliyah said, “left a note for me. Saying that if anything should happen to them, I should find Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne will protect me.”

“And what gave your parents… and you… the impression that I could protect you?”

Aaliyah came alive at that. She squinted her eyes as though the two of them were far away. Or if Bruce and Selina were two exceptionally dull-minded third graders.

To this question, Aaliyah replied:

“Because you’re _Batman…”_


	7. The Great Gotham Team-Up, Part One

**Chapter 7: The Great Gotham Team-Up, Part One**

**GOTHAM CITY - TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO**

On a rain-drenched June night in Gotham City, Batman stood atop the abandoned storage building overlooking a dockside warehouse on the coast.

Robin and Batgirl flanked him.

“This is suicide,” Robin said.

“Jason,” Batgirl said, “there are times when you have to trust in what he’s doing.”

“Is this one of those times?”

Batgirl sighed. Batman could see her run gloved fingers through her wet, red hair.

“This is one of the times where you have to be thankful that we’re not going in there with him. Are you going to be okay in there, Batman?”

“I’ll be fine,” Batman said.

“You’ve managed to cram a lot into a month,” Batgirl said. “You almost died.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Dude,” Robin said, “you know _Superman. _ If you need help, ask him. Don’t do this. This is stupid.”

The corners of Batman’s mouth fell downward in a grizzled frown. He put extra gravel in his voice when he said:

“I’ll be fine.”

As he spread his cape, shaking off the rain, and glided down to the dock, he could hear Batgirl put some mocking gravel in her own voice.

**“He’ll be fine…”**

His boots landed on the soggy wood of the docks with a thump. He righted himself, and walked toward the warehouse beneath the orange, unflattering glow of sodium lights.

Batman touched the side of his cowl, and brought up his heat-sensor lenses. He saw that there was a forbidding amount of heat signatures within the warehouse.

Jason was right.

This _was _suicide.

Batman finally reached the warehouse. He reached out with both hands, and slid the rickety read wooden door back to reveal…

_Everyone._

Almost all of them were there. Two-Face. Scarecrow. Mister Freeze. Mad Hatter. The Riddler. Clayface. Black Mask. Killer Croc. Calendar Man. Firefly. Jane Doe. The Ventriloquist. The Great White Shark. Anarky. Professor Pyg. Victor Zsasz.

They even took up the upper catwalks of the warehouse.

Killer Moth. King Tut. Egghead. Bookworm. Polka-Dot Man. Louie the Lilac. The Condiment King. Cap’n Fear. Magpie. Cavalier. Lock-Up. The Mime. Doctor Cassandra Spellcraft. The Carpenter. The Wrath. Kite Man. Cluemaster. Ratcatcher. Orca. Maxie Zeus. Gunhawk and Bunny. The Flamingo. KGBeast. Colonel Sulphur. Penny Plunderer. Captain Stingaree.

The list went on.

Up on the right catwalk (where there was some room), Ra’s al Ghul himself, accompanied his henchman Ubu. 

Their eyes met but for a moment. There was no warmth in the gaze of either man.

A few feet to The Demon’s left, there was his daughter Talia, who herself was within speaking distance of…

_...Catwoman._

Seeing the two of them together made Batman feel… _things. _ Things he had no business feeling right now.

It wasn’t to say that every enemy Batman had made during his tenure as a masked vigilante was in this warehouse right now.

Hugo Strange had been chased out of Gotham City for advancing the ludicrous theory among his fellow villains that Batman was Bruce Wayne. He’d even attempted to make The Penguin pay for such information. Batman was surprised Cobblepot let him live.

The Victim Syndicate held such anger and fury for Batman that they wouldn’t have submitted to such a gathering.

And if there is a plan that needs devising, one does not ask The Joker and Harley Quinn to join. The Joker might have felt slighted at being left out, but that was a risk he was willing to take.

They had all been talking heatedly before Batman entered the warehouse, and once the door had opened, revealing The Dark Knight, it fell to a silence so all-consuming that Batman could hear the droplets of rainwater falling to the warehouse’s concrete floor from his cape.

Batman stepped into the middle of the room.

He smelled something. Like roses, but not as heavy. Something stronger than the smell of orchids.

Batman knew who it was.

A woman’s voice, husky and seductive, called out to him.

_“Batman…” _she said. _“Come to me…”_

He turned.

Her hair was a rich, deep red. Her skin was the color of mint ice cream. She was barefoot, and naked save for a bodice consisting entirely of leaves.

She held a hand out to him, her green eyes piercing and unblinking.

_“Come to me…” _Poison Ivy said again.

Batman felt his right foot stagger toward her, and what little free will he had left under the influence of her pheromones told him he had to dig deep.

_Why am I here?_

The question coated his mind. Here he was, a thirty-year-old man in a goofy costume, beseeching help from similar men and women in equally goofy clothes. Murderers and thieves that, according to the prevailing theory, he was responsible for bringing into existence. Millions in stolen money, millions in destroyed property, and hundreds upon hundreds dead. His fault. And now this siren, this beautiful woman, wished for his mind and his body, and just… just…

_Why?_

_Why am I here?_

His feet moved no further. He clenched his fists. He affixed his cobalt blue eyes to her, and said:

“No.”

Poison Ivy’s gaze faltered. Her grip on him loosened. And from behind him, Batman heard the leader of this conglomerate of villains, rogues, and assholes.

“Now Ivy,” The Penguin said. “Leave the poor man alone.”

* * *

Catwoman was watching this particular floor show from the catwalk above. She heard the creaking of a leather jacket to her right.

Talia al Ghul wanted to talk to her.

“Look at his power,” Talia said softly. “Poison Ivy can bend anyone, man or woman, to her ends. Everyone… except _him.”_

Catwoman looked at Talia. The eyebrow she raised when she heard someone saying something stupid seemed to go up on its own. Talia was standing there in black leather pants, and black thigh-high boots. A white blouse beneath a black leather jacket. Her rich brown hair had been pulled back into a bun, all the better to reveal dark tan cheekbones that the TSA would have thought twice about letting aboard an airplane.

“I am an educated woman,” Talia said, “Yet I do not have, in all the languages I know, the words to describe him. His will is _remarkable.”_

It seemed to Catwoman that Batman had rendered this ice queen, uncontested sovereign to her own constituency of ice people, to someone who would have screamed and fainted at the sight of Elvis fifty years ago.

Catwoman looked down at Batman prying himself away from Ivy. There was something in the way he stood. Something in the way he clenched his teeth. Something in the way even cast his shadow.

“It isn’t will,” Catwoman said.

Talia took her eyes off of Batman and, with dull surprise, aimed her green gaze at her, right down the nose like a good Evil Disney Queen should.

“I beg your pardon?” she asked.

“He isn’t resisting with all his might,” Catwoman said. “He might have an iron will, but that’s not what he’s using right now. Just… Just look at the way he’s carrying himself.”

Talia looked back and forth between the two of them, lowering her brow in an effort not to look confused. Catwoman, for her part, couldn’t keep the smirk off of her face.

“It’s self-loathing,” Catwoman said.

Only now did Talia al Ghul lose the war with her own face. _Now _she looked confused.

“He hates himself,” Catwoman said. “That’s how he gets out of the Ivy jam. I’ve been under her spell myself. It’s like quicksand. The more you struggle, the deeper you sink. The more I’ve thought about it, the only way to keep yourself from wanting Ivy is to think yourself unwantable. Then the illusion breaks down. I can’t do it myself, as I’m just fucking delightful, but...”

Talia blinked, and then raised a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle far too girlish to come out of the mouth of a genocidal madman’s daughter.

“What reason could he _possibly _have to hate himself?” Talia asked.

Catwoman looked from Talia, to Batman, and back to Talia.

“How well do you know the guy?”

Talia’s green eyes twinkled. A smile came to her lips. And she walked away into the shadows.

The meaning was clear.

_Oh… So Batman and Talia slept together._

Which was fine. She held no lease on Batman. He was a grown-ass man, she was a grown-ass woman, and they could both do whatever the hell they pleased.

_Hell, _Selina thought. _I’d sleep with Talia myself._ _ If I stood on ceremony, that would make me a hypocrite._

The Penguin said something down below.

“Now, Ivy. Leave the poor man alone.”

The rest of the room found this amusing, as they laughed.

And while they laughed, Catwoman’s lips moved. She had caught a snatch of lyrics to a Fiona Apple song she hadn’t heard in a good long while, and she was softly singing it to herself, the laughter drowning her out.

_“O Sailor, why’d you do it? What’d you do that for?”_

And for the life of her, Catwoman didn’t know _why…_

* * *

As the room laughed at Poison Ivy’s failed attempt at seduction, she shot them a look of utmost fury, before she tried to find an area of the warehouse that wasn’t occupied in which she could stand and fume.

Batman looked at The Penguin. Oswald Cobblepot was barely hit the five foot mark without the top hat that he wore. He was wearing a tuxedo whose jacket bore scattered mayonnaise stains, and whose shirt was flecked with bits of stray lettuce. His long black hair draped in tendrils over the back of his jacket like a Lovecraftian oil spill, and his long nose cast a shadow down the middle of his small, pouting mouth. And he had that damned monocle over his left eye.

“She’d only show up if he we let her give it the old college try,” The Penguin said. “It was nothing personal, I assure you.”

Batman didn’t say anything.

“You’ve spent the last week trying to contact all of us and bring us here,” The Penguin said. “I have to ask why.”

“Why do you think?” Batman asked.

The Penguin grinned. He clutched the lapels of his tuxedo jacket like the mayor of a small town in an old western, and took a step forward, looking up into Batman’s eyes.

“Bane broke you,” The Penguin said, “and you want to build an army to take him down.”

There was scattered giggling among the attendant supervillains. Batman craned his neck to get a better look at the miniature gun-runner before him, and said:

“You’re right.”

That stilled the crowd. For whatever reason they came here, the Big Bad Bat showing weakness must not have been high on the least of expectations.

Bane, an import from the island nation of Santa Prisca, had hit the city a month ago like a hurricane, and the one time that Batman faced him in open combat ended with Batman’s shattered back, and three weeks in the Kryptonian regeneration chamber in the Batcave’s med bay.

But among that crowd, someone had to break the silence.

“Hey Penguin,” Killer Croc said. “Lemme eat him.”

“No,” The Penguin said.

“You let Ivy do her… her fuckin’... _‘pollen fingers’ _deal. How come you can’t lemme eat him?”

“Because we’d all have to watch you eat him, and that would be disgusting.”

“Let me turn him into a cockroach,” Doctor Cassandra Spellcraft said.

“Let me give him to The Flame,” said Firefly.

“Let me freeze him to absolute zero and spend months chipping pieces of him off,” said Mister Freeze.”

“Let me flay his chest and suffocate him with his own skin,” said Victor Zsasz.

Everyone was really quiet after that last one.

Except Kite Man who, under the direct influence of whatever the serial-murdering polar opposite of the Holy Spirit was, bellowed _“Hell yeah!”_

Zsasz did not take this outburst in stride. He immediately found Kite Man in the crowd and yelled **“SHUT THE FUCK UP, CHARLIE! NO ONE LIKES YOU!”**

Kite Man just looked at his feet.

“It seems,” The Penguin said, “that you have an uphill climb to convince us of anything. I theorize that your admission of weakness was a ploy to endear us to you. I hate to say that you’re in the wrong room for that.”

“I don’t need to endear myself to you,” Batman said. “I just need to be honest. Bane beat me. And that puts all of you in grave danger.”

The whole room laughed at that. Even The Penguin, who dropped his genteel veneer to do so.

Once he calmed himself, The Penguin said “All Bane did was do what none of us could do. He broke you. And yes, kudos for bouncing back from it as quickly as you have, but I hardly see why we should help you.”

“I know exactly why,” Batman said.

“Do so endeavour to enlighten me.”

Batman bent the top half of his body down to get right into The Penguin’s face.

“Because you’re terrified,” he said.

The Penguin’s face didn’t change, but Batman knew he got the point across. He stood up straight and let his eyes scan the room.

“All of you… are terrified.”

No one said anything.

“Need proof?” Batman asked. “Fine. If you weren’t all so scared, then would you mind telling me why I’m still alive? Why I’m standing upright? For years, I’ve stolen your drugs, destroyed your weapons, took your money, and beat you to bloody pulps. I’ve thrown you in Blackgate. I’ve thrown you in Arkham. But Croc hasn’t eaten me. Spellcraft hasn’t turned me into a Cockroach. I haven’t been fried, frozen, or flayed. You’re all just standing there… _listening _to what the man you hate most in the world has to say.

“I’m the devil you know,” Batman said finally. “Bane? He’s the devil you don’t.”

“He can’t be so bad,” Black Mask said. “He kicked _your _ass.”

He looked to the person on his right, and asked “Am I right?”

The person on his right was The Mime.

Who didn’t say anything.

Because she was a mime.

“I’ll thank you not to make assumptions of our emotional states,” The Penguin said. “However we may be feeling at the moment, it still doesn’t change the fact that Bane has made no moves past his station. For all we know, he’s just a criminal like the rest of us. Trying to get a dollar and a dime through less than legal means.”

“For all you know.”

“That’s right.”

“But not for all _I _know,” Batman said.

“Are you in possession of some knowledge that you would like to share with the rest of the class?” The Penguin asked.

“I have it on good authority,” Batman said, “that Bane is getting a new formula of Venom from Santa Prisca. It’s due to arrive on a ship at the dockyards in three days time. Which gives us three days to prepare.”

Mister Freeze piped up. “How do you know this Venom is even coming to Gotham at all? All we have is your word, Batman.”

“How do I know which diamond shipments you’re going to boost before you get there?” Batman asked. “How do I know which chemicals Crane is trying to steal? I have my ways, as every last one of you knows.”

“First,” The Penguin said, “this theoretical Venom shipment gives _you _three days to prepare. We’ve agreed to nothing. Second, it’s _his _Venom. He uses it to get bulky and strong. His business is his business. I don’t pry into the Mayor’s cocaine habit, and I won’t pry into Bane’s Venom habit.”

“It’s a new formula,” Batman said. “I’ve hacked into the chemist’s files and ran the analysis myself. It’s exponentially stronger than the formula he uses now. And barrels of the stuff are coming in. Do you really think he needs all that just for one man?”

“So he wants to give it to his employees,” The Penguin said. “I haven’t seen or heard anything that worries me yet.”

“Does Bane strike you as a simple bank robber?” Batman asked. “Does he deal drugs? Does he run guns? No. Everything is philosophical with him. Everything he does has to prove his point.”

“And what is his point?” The Penguin asked.

“That he’s the strongest. That he’s the best. That he will brook absolutely no weakness in himself or others. And it’s the _‘others’ _part that should worry you all.”

He looked across the warehouse again. “You’ve all been crippled by something. Physically, mentally, ideologically, it doesn’t matter. Something made all of us into who we are.”

“Who _we _are?” Catwoman asked from the catwalk.

Batman shook his head, waving it off. “The fact is, I can make allowances for how you all got here. I’ll actually try to help you”

“You broke three of my ribs the last time you threw me in Arkham,” The Riddler said. “If that’s your version of helping me, Batman, I really don’t want to see your version of _hurting _me.”

“You had a gun on me while I was trying to save a fifteen-year-old boy from one of your death traps, Nygma. I didn’t give you anything you didn’t earn.”

“Pfeh,” The Riddler said. “Details.”

“I work from what you give me,” Batman said. “But I know all of you have difficulties in some form or another.”

Batman took his eyes off of The Riddler, and addressed the room again. “But the Venom is getting here in three days. He’s going to give it to his men. He’ll have an army of superhumans at his disposal. And when that happens, what chances do you think he’ll give you? How kindly will he look on your weaknesses? Is he going to make sure you go to Arkham? Or will he kill you just to purge the city of something he thinks is _less _than him? Because make no mistake, that’s how he looks at all of you. And the moment you cross any line, real or imagined, he will come for you. And you will not last the night. Remaking this city in his own image does not include any of us.”

“A _‘City of Bane,’” _The Penguin said. “The very words make me sick to my stomach. But we are a criminal sort, my good man, and we must discuss matters of recompense.”

“Yeah,” Black Mask said. “What do we get out of all this?”

“The most precious gift you can imagine.”

“I don’t know,” Magpie said from the back. “I can imagine a lot.”

“I’m giving you the status quo,” Batman said.

Everyone was silent.

“Nothing changes,” Batman said. “Life goes on. The world keeps spinning the way it has been. And I have a term myself.”

“What might that be?” asked The Penguin.

Batman was silent for a moment, trying to create the maximum impact when he finally said:

“No one dies.”

There was one isolated, ungodly squeal from the middle of the collection of criminals to Batman’s left.

It was Professor Pyg.

“NO!” he yelled. “NO, NO, NO!”

The hulking Professor Pyg made his way through his fellow rogues. All of them gave him a wide berth, as he still had chunks of… _someone… _on his black apron.

He scratched beneath his pink pig mask as he made his way to the exit. “The interference with Pyg’s art? The stifling of Pyg’s calling? THE THEFT OF PYG’S WHEAT THINS? Perfidy! _Calumny! _ **_Limburger!_ ** **_HORSESHIT!”_**

Pyg stopped as soon as he came to the exit, casting an accusing finger upon the congregation.

“OUR CREATOR WOULD NEVER HAVE MADE SUCH LOVELY DAYS, AND HAVE GIVEN US THE DEEP HEARTS TO ENJOY THEM, ABOVE AND BEYOND ALL THOUGHT, UNLESS WE WERE MEANT TO BE IMMORTAL!”

And then he left the warehouse the same way Batman had entered, to fend for himself beneath the rainy Gotham skies.

All was quiet until Ra’s al Ghul, who had been silent up to that point, decided to speak.

“It appears that the deranged murderer in a pig mask has decided to quote Nathaniel Hawthorne.”

“He did,” Bookworm said. “He really did. Trust me, I’d know.”

Ignoring all this, The Penguin turned to Batman.

“Pyg does have a point, old chap. Asking a room filled to capacity with killers not to kill anyone is a bit much.”

“But I’m asking it,” Batman said. “No one dies. Not intentionally, and not in any accidents.”

“What happens if we have an, uh… _‘accident?’” _Killer Croc asked.

“Remember how I said I make allowances for your circumstances?” Batman asked. “I mean that. I don’t react to Bookworm’s literary performance art the same way I do to Two-Face’s bank robberies. I don’t treat Condiment King’s vandalism with the same level of threat that I do The Joker’s mass murder attempts. I don’t treat Ratcatcher the same way I do Catwoman.”

“I certainly fucking hope not,” Ratcatcher called out. “No offense, dude, but I’m not trying to sleep with you.”

Catwoman called out from above them. “Drink cold piss, Otis!”

“Nah thanks,” Ratcatcher said. “I ain’t thirsty, Selina. _You, _on the other hand…”

Polka-Dot Man let out an abrasive laugh. _ “Awwwww shit, son!”_

“ENOUGH!” The Penguin shouted, quieting down the room.

“As I said,” Batman continued, “I treat all of you differently… But if Bane, or any of his men die during the operation, then that all changes. You all become instant threats of the worst possible caliber.”

He looked at Victor Zsasz. “If you kidnap someone with the intent to kill them and add a mark to your body, I will go through you.” 

He looked at The Mime. “If you try to bomb the ballet again, I will go through you.”

He looked at Egghead. “If you try to steal the Russian Imperial Faberge Eggs from the Gotham City Museum of Art, I will go through you.”

He looked at Anarky. “If you so much as hand out copies of _Das Kapital _on a street corner wearing that mask of yours, I will go through you.”

And finally, just as he had rehearsed beforehand, he looked up at Catwoman.

“And if you even shoplift a used CD, I. Will. Go. _Through. _ You.”

Catwoman retreated into the shadows. How she reacted to this was not clear to him.

But he did see a smirk on Talia’s face, though.

He thought he made his point well. Everyone in the room knew that Batman and Catwoman had a… _unique _… way of treating one another. By singling her out like that, it showed everyone else he meant business.

Batman finally surveyed the silent room again.

“Admit that when I came to you with this, you were wondering how I would keep all of you honest. Fact of the matter is, I won’t. You’ll keep _each other _honest. One of you screwing up equals a lifetime of pain and torment for the rest of you. I won’t kill any of you. That much should be obvious. But nowhere… and I do mean _nowhere… _does it say that I can’t make you beg for it.”

Finally, he fixed his gaze on The Penguin. “Any questions?”

Killer Moth spoke. “I have one.”

Everyone looked at him. He twiddled his thumbs, having become newly acquainted with the concept of stage fright.

“Um… don’t you know _Superman _or some shit?” he asked. “He could do the work of all of us in his sleep. What do you need us for?”

“Yeah,” said The Carpenter. “There are, like, sixty Green Lanterns from Earth alone. They can’t all be busy.”

Batman took a breath. “This is Gotham City. When it’s in trouble, Gotham City has to save itself. That includes you.”

He looked at The Great White Shark. He was a ghastly fellow with his teeth filed down to points. His head was shaved bald, and he’d lost his nose to frostbite. 

“You.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re Warren White.”

“The one and only.”

“You raided pension funds to buy bigger yachts.”

“Sure did.”

“You’re utterly foul and completely irredeemable.”

“Yeah, well--”

“You’re one of the worst people I’ve ever met in my life.”

“You don’t--you don’t have to lay it on all _thick _like that…”

“But you’re still worth saving.”

The Great White Shark didn’t seem to have anything to say to that. Batman tried to make eye contact with as many people as he could.

“All of you… Every last one of you… is worth saving. And the only way we can do that is together.”

“Unless we accidentally kill someone,” Catwoman said from the shadows. “Then you’ll beat the shit out of us. That how this works?”

“That’s how this works,” Batman said. “It’s still a better shot than what Bane will give you.”

Finally, he looked back at The Penguin. “Well, Oswald?”

The Penguin sighed. He took off his top hat, wiped a few beads of sweat from his forehead, and then put it back on.

He looked at Two-Face. “Mister Dent, your moment has come.”

Two-Face fished that coin of his out of the breast pocket of his half-ruined white suit jacket. He flipped it into the air with his thumb…

_PING!_

...before it landed in the palm of his hand with a dull smack.

He looked at it, but didn’t say anything.

“Well?” Cluemaster asked. “How’d it land, Harv?”

Two-Face looked out at all of them.

**“iT LaNdEd On ThE SiDe tHaT sAyS wE gOt WoRk tO dO…”**


	8. Destiny Turns On the Radio

**Chapter 8: Destiny Turns On the Radio**

**GOTHAM CITY - NOW**

Bruce didn’t say anything. He swore he could feel the synapses in his brain sprout fuzz due to the confusion. His insides were a tundra. He didn’t know quite how to react to this.

“Or you _were _Batman,” Aaliyah said. “I try to check the news sites when I can. Despite the fact that everyone can agree Batman’s still around, no one’s actually seen him for years. You’re getting up there age-wise, so…”

Aaliyah trailed off. Though her eyes were welling up, the expression on her face didn’t change.

“Who are your parents?” Bruce asked as softly and as flatly as possible.

“Don’t you mean who _‘were’ _they?” Aaliyah asked. “They’re dead now. But… They were Evan and Victoria Ramsey. He worked construction. She was a bartender… Like it matters anymore.”

“Can I see you outside for a minute?” Selina asked.

Bruce nodded, and followed her out of the office, and over to the reception desk.

“Well, Sailor?” Selina asked.

“I don’t know,” Bruce said. “And I won’t, until I run Evan and Victoria Ramsay through the Batcomputer and see who they really were. Because a construction worker and a bartender didn’t find out that Bruce Wayne is Batman through telepathy. They didn’t find out in a dream.”

Bruce took a breath before he spoke again. “All of this is connected. Violet. Tim getting arrested. Now this. I need to contact the GCPD.”

“Batman’s calling the cops?” Selina asked.

“I’m not Batman anymore,” Bruce said, the very words feeling like a lie. “But whoever’s coming for us knows who we are. And tonight you, me, Cassandra, Carrie, and Harper are going to be at the Pennyworth fundraiser at the Gotham Royale tonight. Police presence needs to be beefed up for the safety of everyone there.”

“Good idea,” Selina said. “That’s great, it really is. But aren’t we ignoring the fifteen-year-old cheerleading elephant in the room?”

Bruce nodded. “I’d send her to Wayne Manor, but…”

“But?”

“My identity is compromised,” Bruce said. “But Tim, Conner, and Violet are at the Manor right now, and their identities may not be. So…”

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Selina said. “Bring her to the fundraiser with us tonight, it’s gonna be great.”

Bruce looked at his wife. He could see that she was trying to keep a smile off of her face, and for the life of him, he couldn’t possibly imagine why.

He figured, however, that it was best not to pry. Married life had taught him, over the past fifteen years, that the bounds of matrimony did not entitle purchase to the other person’s interior life. Such things were best shared willingly, and not pried into.

But still…

“Whoever’s behind this,” Bruce said, “the fundraiser is where they’re most likely to strike next. And you want to… put the key to all of this right in the middle?”

“Bruce,” Selina said, looking at him as though he were a child who had tried to help out with the housework by using toilet water to mop the floor. “Aaliyah will be in the middle of a heavy GCPD presence. Then there will be me, you, Black Bat, Robin, and the former Bluebird. And if the real party starts, you just know The Signal’s gonna crash it. A heavy, well-concealed security system around the prize. The downfall of every enterprising thief in human history that wasn’t named Selina Kyle. They could send an army, Sailor, and they would _still _need an army.”

Bruce nodded. “You really think Deputy Mayor Harper Row is going to start throwing punches at the first sign of trouble?”

“Harper is a close, personal friend of mine,” Selina said. “If there’s a down to be thrown, she will throw down. Even if she doesn’t know it yet.”

He looked at her through narrowed eyelids. “I see that Catwoman is taking in a stray.”

“And I see that Batman is gearing up to throw a ninety-five mile-an-hour fastball within the friendly confines of his glass house,” Selina said. “The last stray you took in, you adopted and she started calling you _‘dad.’”_

Selina patted him on the shoulder, smiled that smile, and said “Relax, Sailor, everything’s gonna be fine.”

And with that, she walked back into the office. Bruce followed her.

“Alright,” Selina said to Aaliyah. “Anyone else in our shoes would tell you how sorry they were, and they know how you feel even though they don’t. But me and Bruce are orphans ourselves, and we _do _actually know how you feel. You don’t want to hear ‘ _Sorry.’ _ What you want, even though you don’t want to admit it, is to eat and to sleep. That sound good to you?”

Aaliyah didn’t say anything, but she did rub her eyes and nod.

“Alright then,” Selina said. “I’m gonna order in from Le Nouveous Cinquante-Deux. Best fucking crab cakes I’ve ever had. You have any food allergies I need to know about?”

Aaliyah shook her head.

“Alright then,” Selina said. “After you have stuffed yourself to the point that you can’t even think anymore…”

She walked over to the far brick wall and tapped on one of the bricks three times.

A compartment within the wall slid open.

Bruce had had it installed during his early Batman days. Within was a secret chamber with a bed and a dresser. It was sound-proofed, so no one could tell when he was using it.

As far as Bruce could remember, he had never actually told Selina about this compartment. Not that he was keeping it a secret from her. He just never got around to it.

“And there’s a shower down in the executive gym down in the basement,” Selina said, “in case you want to use that as well. After that, we’re going to get you some clothes. Rich folks are having a party tonight, and we kinda have to take you along.”

“Do you really think I’m up for a party right now?” Aaliyah asked.

To which Selina pointed to Bruce. “See him?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s never up for a party,” Selina said. “But he keeps going, because he knows how important appearances are. He goes, suffers greatly, and then goes back into his hole in the ground.”

“She’s right,” Bruce said. “I am not a people person.”

“Aaliyah, we don’t know how to handle you yet,” Selina said. “Until we do, we’re stuck together. You actually born in North Carolina? Not just living there?”

“Yeah.”

“Population of how many, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Around two thousand.”

“Alright,” Selina said. “So… you hate rich people as much as I do.”

Bruce saw Aaliyah put her hand to her face. She was wiping the smile off.

A memory came back to him of seeing Alfred slip on a wet patch of floor in the kitchen, screaming _“BLOODY HELL!” _as he tried to right himself.

It had happened a week after Bruce’s parents were murdered.

And he too had tried to wipe the smile off of his face. His parents had been taken from him, and any smile at all just felt _wrong._

“So we’ll stand in the corner,” Selina said to Aaliyah, “we’ll make fun of the dipshit tech billionaires and their trophy wives, and I’ll maybe-just-maybe sneak you a glass of champagne.”

Aaliyah, face back to blank, said “I’m fifteen.”

“And I don’t give a shit,” Selina said. “You need one, age be damned. And the downside of knowing all of Gotham City’s superheroes is knowing that none of them drink.”

Something in Selina’s stance shifted. She was employing that gift she had of getting on the wavelength of anyone to whom she spoke. It was a power that mystified Bruce more than Kryptonian flight.

“C’ _mon,” _Selina said. “Don’t make me talk to these assholes by myself.”

And, yet again, Aaliyah put her hand to her face.

* * *

Before Carrie, Dick, and Tim arrived for the Robin Summit, a black Lincoln Towncar arrived at the front of the RH Kane Building on Founders Island. It was sleek, well-maintained, and had even been retrofitted for a new Kord electric engine.

The driver, however, was a direct and almost defiant contrast to the car itself. He was a slovenly fellow in his fifties, with a pot belly lovingly confined within a tank-top undershirt. He had hairy shoulders, thinning brown hair, and two prominent buck teeth that had taken to going yellow.

He was there to pick up Cassandra.

Wearing sunglasses, a black leather jacket, and a red blouse above black slacks, she stepped into the back seat of the Towncar, the door to which the driver had so graciously opened.

The driver’s name was Otis Flannegan. Once upon a time he was known as Ratcatcher; an F-List villain for Batman that had a telepathic control of Gotham City’s rodent population.

When Batman went on his three year hiatus after the death of The Joker and before the rise of The Undying, Otis Flannegan was one of the many ex-supervillains who had been loosed upon Gotham City by a reformed Arkham Asylum with no prospects and no plan. Otis, for his part, landed as well as he could. He entered into the service of the most unlikely of patrons:

Otis Flannegan worked for the Paige family.

Following the death of the family patriarch Martin Paige (the papers said it was a hunting accident), only son Victor Paige had his little sister Violet sent to a boarding school called Gather House. Gather House was not, strictly speaking, the boarding school that its brochures and promotional materials had proclaimed it. They conducted grotesque science experiments on the children under their care, including installing cybernetic implants into the young Violet Paige that gave her her super strength.

Gather House was destroyed in a fire, and of all the faculty, staff, and children who went there, Violet Paige was the only survivor.

Upon her return to Gotham, Violet had gotten her mother out of a mental institution, and the two holed up in a long-abandoned hotel on Miagani Island called _“The Pike,” _which was still under the Paige family portfolio as a tax write-off. It was during these initial stages of Violet’s tenure as the costumed vigilante Mother Panic that Otis Flannegan came into Violet’s employ.

Someone, after all, had to look after Violet’s mother Rebecca while Mother Panic was out saving Gotham City.

The Pike was Otis and Cassandra’s destination today. Someone had to bear the news to Rebecca Paige that her only daughter had almost been beaten to death by an unknown party. Cassandra thought it best that it was she who delivered the news.

One of the reasons that Cassandra and Violet’s relationship had lasted as long as it had was because Cassandra and Rebecca had gotten along so well.

They were halfway across the bridge connecting Founders Island to Miagani Island when Otis decided to speak up.

“So how is she?” he asked.

Cassandra had been staring out the window at the long rail above the bridge. In the coming days, there was going to be an unmanned test-run of Gotham’s new monorail system, and that rail above the bridge was connected to all three islands and the mainland. Mayor Alysia Yeoh was even going to be the one who flipped the switch that sent the monorail on the test run.

“She’s bad,” Cassandra said. “But she’ll get better.”

“Good,” Otis said. “The Paiges have done alright by me.”

“I know.”

There was a lull for a moment, before Otis spoke again.

“Never thought I’d be driving around Bruce Wayne’s daughter to see my boss.”

“Rebecca’s not just your boss, Otis. We both know that.”

“No,” Otis said. He was quiet before he said, yet again, “Becky’s good people. The Paiges... They’ve done alright by me.”

They spent the rest of the journey in silence.

The Pike had been erected in 1925, and even now, beneath its general disrepair and beneath the shadows of buildings that had long since dwarfed it, it stood pugnacious and defiant: a run-down memorial to an age of Gotham City that only existed in the general subconscious of historians and architecture buffs that stood an unlucky thirteen stories. 

Otis pulled the Towncar up to the curb in front of the entrance. Out they got, and in they walked.

The lobby of The Pike was clean, but the boarded-up windows lent the place a creepy antique store vibe. Cassandra held a notion, foolish though it may have been, that the red sofas, the ancient brass ashtrays, even the tarnished silver bell at the old check-out desk were all cursed.

There was a light coming from the open area at the far end of the lobby. And from that open area a voice; old and reedy, yet possessed of a singular character, was singing.

_“It begins to tell ‘round midnight, midnight… I do pretty well till after sundown…”_

The footsteps of Cassandra and Otis echoed on the old marble floors, lending the song an off-tempo percussion.

_“Supper time I’m feelin’ sad… But it really gets bad ‘round midnight…”_

The lobby opened up into an area of The Pike that used to be a fountain but was now, over a hundred years after its erection, a makeshift garden.

_“Memories always start ‘round midnight… Haven’t got the heart to stand those memories…”_

When Violet Paige was a child, her mother Rebecca had been diagnosed with early-onset dementia. The longer time went on, however, that diagnosis seemed more and more erroneous.

_“When my heart is still with you… And ol’ midnight knows it too…”_

For starters, the dementia never progressed past a certain point. It just… stopped. Which flew in the face of every other case of the neurodegenerative disorder.

_“When a quarrel we had needs mending… Does it mean that our love is ending…?”_

But going even further? Rebecca Paige _knew _things. She knew, for example, that a young man she had known so long ago named Bruce Wayne spent all of his adult life dressed up as a bat and fighting crime. This, despite no one telling her so.

_“Darlin’ I need you; lately I find… You’re out of my heart and I’m out of my mind…”_

Rebecca Paige could see into the present and, as Violet had once told her, she could see into the near-future as well. Cassandra was not quite sure as to whether or not this was magic or Rebecca was manifesting metahuman abilities, but there was no denying that Violet’s mom had displayed the telltale signs of clairvoyance.

And upon this converted garden space, in this antiquated and withered hotel, Rebecca Paige knelt in a pair of overalls, and tended to her mushrooms.

“Heya, Becky,” Otis said.

Rebecca turned, breaking off her reedy rendition of Ella Fitzgerald’s greatest hit. The lines on her face seemed, to Cassandra, like thin wrapping paper that held the previous versions of Rebecca Paige; the laughers, the drunks, the stern matrons, and the wild-eyed teenagers beneath it. Some people, when they hit their seventies, reel in the minds of all who look at them as that age for all their time on Earth. They were the oldest ever infants, kindergarten students, girl scouts, Miss Teen Gotham 4H Hog Calling Champions. But Cassandra just needed to look at Rebecca Paige to know that she could have been anyone. Her peculiar face was all ages, all states, all occupations in a single visage.

She wiped a lock of gray hair out of her jade-colored eyes. “Hello… _You.”_

“You get the fertilizer?” Otis asked.

“I did,” Rebecca said. “Soon, I’ll have portobellos big and rich enough to sell to Ajax’s. You know, the place on fifteenth?”

“Ajax’s closed down twenty years ago.”

Rebecca huffed. “You live in a depressing place.”

Otis grinned at that. “I’ll leave you two alone.”

As Otis walked off, Rebecca stood, and smacked some of the dirt off the knees of her overalls. She then embraced Cassandra, and kissed her on the forehead.

“Cas- _sand _-dra, dear.”

It was the damnedest thing: Rebecca had trouble with Otis’ name some days, and even Violet’s on others. But she never forgot Cassandra Wayne’s name.

“Walk with me,” Rebecca said, and they began a doddering, logy circuit around the circular garden area beneath the glass dome, through which the gray dourness of the sky tried to invade.

“I must say, dear, that you are _horribly _misdressed.”

Cassandra looked down at her clothes. “Why’s that?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

“Right,” Cassandra said. “Look, I came here to--”

_“Otis!”_

“What?”

_“That _was his name,” Rebecca said. _“Otis! _ My mother told me that if my head were detachable, I’d keep leaving it in the john. Just so you know that my flights of fancy and general dreaminess are not new, young lady.”

Cassandra thought it would be best to just come out and say it.

“Violet’s been hurt,” she said. “Bad. But Bruce has everything under control, she’s being looked after and cared for. She’s going to be fine, and she’s going to be back here at The Pike before you know it.”

Rebecca stopped walking.

So did Cassandra, but she also stopped breathing.

She saw Rebeccca’s green eyes staring off into the ether before her, as though she were deciphering code through a napkin saturated with grease.

“Well…” Rebecca finally said, “the past does hurt.”

Cassandra narrowed her gaze. “The past?”

“Oh, yes,” Rebecca said.

“Whose past?”

“Why does it have to be just one person’s? The whole of the human race is defined by its suffering. Your famines, your plagues, your ennuis, your infidelities, your that-bastard-just-took-my-parking-spots. Though--and this is the point where I bend over backwards to be fair--some strains of misery do flock like birds among certain people.”

Rebecca put her hands on Cassandra’s shoulders. “We’re old money.”

“We are?” Cassandra asked.

“Old families.”

“Yeah, but… You remember I’m adopted, right?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rebecca said. “The circles we move in, the air is rarified. Our foibles ping across each others’ brains, shared as though by telepathy. Or, if you wish to be vulgar, _scabies.”_

“I do not wish to be vulgar.”

“Good girl.”

Rebecca craned her neck downward to get a better look at her.

“But when I was your age,” Rebecca said, “I wish someone told me what I’m about to tell you.”

“Okay.”

“It’s very important.”

“Okay.”

“Maybe the most important.”

“Okay.”

“It isn’t, though, but it could be under the right context.”

“Oooooooo... _kay?”_

Rebecca continued to peer into Cassandra, her face bearing the gravity of what she was about to say. Until finally, mercifully, Rebecca said:

“Moses supposes his toeses are roses, but Moses supposes erroneously.”

Cassandra blinked.

“And,” Rebecca said, “Moses, he knowses his toeses aren’t roses as Moses supposes his toeses to be.”

Cassandra just… deflated. _I didn’t know what I thought I was going to get…_

“Life is just stumbling,” Rebecca said after a pause. “Pants around our ankles, thumbs in our mouths, looking for ecstacy. Enlightenment. Context. Beauty.”

Rebecca gasped, and put her hands to her mouth like a turn-of-the-twentieth-century schoolgirl.

“What is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen?” Rebecca asked.

Cassandra didn’t hesitate. “The twin suns over the mountains of Rann.”

It was a Justice League excursion to the planet Rann three years ago. The Rann high government requested a detachment there on suspicion that Rogol Zaar was hiding out in the Yevtarid Mountains… Which he was. Power Girl had to go and kick the shit out of him.

“Hmmmmmm,” Rebecca said with her eyes closed, visibly trying to imagine the majesty of a sunrise on a planet upon which she had not set foot. “Wouldn’t it be grand if one were asked that question, and their answer was just the sight of little old you?”

“Yeah,” Cassandra said. “Who would say no to that?”

“My late husband said such a thing of me,” Rebecca said. “Before the dinosaurs died out. And… Lucky you. You’re up to three. Good heavens, aren’t we lucky?”

The lids of Cassandra’s eyes started fluttering, as though she were an android version of herself undergoing a factory reset.

_“Three?”_

“The point is,” Rebecca said, “you’re a doll. And I don’t even blame you for things not working out with Violet.”

Cassandra felt the rush of blood to her cheeks that accompanied the swooping rollercoaster drop of embarrassment. “Oh, uh… That’s uh....”

“Shhhhhhh,” Rebecca said. “My Violet is not an asshole. But she does such a _striking _impersonation of one. Sadly, some people mesh but for a time. Thankfully, her prospects are looking up. If the world plays its cards right. It owes it to her, after all.”

Cassandra took Rebecca’s clairvoyance into mind when she asked “Who’s the lucky… person?”

“If she thinks it’s your business, she’ll tell you,” Rebecca said. “And the smile on her face will be _joyous! _ Of a like she hasn’t had on her face in years. And that’s why I don’t seem to be as pressed about the fact that someone tried to cave in her head last night as I should be.”

For a second time in as many sentences, Cassandra took Rebecca’s clairvoyance into mind when she asked “You wouldn’t happen to know who did that, would you?”

Rebecca smiled broadly, and said _“Context, _Cassandra dear.”

Cassandra sighed. “Right.”

“For now… You really are horribly misdressed.”

“You keep saying that,” Cassandra said. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

_“Purple,” _said Rebecca. “Where on Earth is your _purple? _ It’s Spoiler Day! A fun day for me! For _you! _ For the itty bitty babies, and the old folks home at the Old Folks Home!”

Cassandra Wayne felt a phenomenon she liked to call _“the reverse soliloquy.” _ During monologues, you get one sole spotlight on you. But at times like these, you get one shadow.

With what had been going on, Cassandra had completely forgotten it was Spoiler Day.

Which meant that today was the one mandatory day a year that she had to think about Stephanie Brown.

Cassandra remembered the last time she saw Stephanie. She was Batgirl, and Stephanie was Spoiler. Cassandra hugged her and told her good luck, because she knew that Stephanie was going to go and talk to the father that caused her so much pain.

Then Game Seven happened, and Gotham City propped Spoiler up on an eternal pedestal in the belief she had murdered Cluemaster by dropping him off of a roof.

It both amused and shamed Cassandra Wayne that the most enduring link she still had to the mute and illiterate daughter of an assassin that she had been, that version of herself that she had tried to outgrow, was the unwavering belief that Stephanie Brown did not murder her father.

Further compounding emotional difficulties was what happened the night after Game Seven. Selina told her over her first ever whiskey shot that Stephanie had been in love with Cassandra.

Which… complicated matters a great deal. As well as raised more than a few questions.

Cassandra remembered waiting for Stephanie that night after Game Seven. Hoping that her partner in crimefighting would come back and uncomplicate things. Answer some of those questions.

She waited the next night as well.

A week. 

A month.

A year.

A decade.

Now, at the fourteen year mark, there was still a part of Cassandra Wayne’s brain that was as easy to visit as a landmark on a map. A place that housed a teenage girl lugging around a book of Shakespeare that she couldn’t read, waiting for her best friend to come home.

“I see you’ve been sent on a journey,” Rebecca said. “You’ve been standing there awhile.”

Cassandra shook her head. “I, um…”

“Don’t worry,” Rebecca said. “Happens to the best of us. Now… we both have matters to attend to, don’t we?”

“Yeah, Cassandra said. “Yeah, we do.”

“Then don’t let me keep you. Stop on by any time.”

“I will,” Cassandra said. “Have a good one, Rebecca.”

“You too.”

Cassandra turned and started to walk away.

“Cass?”

Cassandra turned around.

Rebecca had a far-away expression. And the shadow that Cassandra held felt over her head a moment ago now seemed to have fallen upon Rebecca Paige.

“There are two words,” Rebecca said. “Two words in this language that we share. They open doors and bring smiles. They gladden hearts. They rip through lost causes and turn them into fighting chances… Would you like to know what these two words are?”

There was a small, muted explosion within the depth of Cassandra’s chest. Its shockwave spread outward through her body, making her fingers tingle.

Cassandra did not like this feeling.

Because she knew it was fear.

“Yes,” Cassandra said. “I would.”

If Rebecca’s face held many faces, many versions of herself from long past, then the version of Rebecca Paige that stood before Cassandra was that of a great seer. The kind thought lost since the days of ancient myth. Impossible, yet… there she was.

She wrapped Cassandra in a green, pitiless gaze, and said:

_“‘I’m sorry.’”_

* * *

Arkham Asylum had been closed for the last two years.

The place had been founded in 1864, as the Civil War raged, by Doctor Amadeus Arkham, who himself had gone so mad as to eventually become one of its patients.

It bloomed from the original Mercey Mansion on Arkham Island into a deluxe haven for Gotham City’s criminally insane, holding multiple cell blocks, therapy wings, recreation centers, and living quarters. It stayed that way for one-hundred and seventy years, growing for all that time, until the last of the Arkham family (and then-administrator of the facility), Doctor Jeremiah Arkham, disappeared twenty-one years ago under mysterious circumstances, leaving behind his letter of resignation and marking the end of one of Gotham’s great landmarks, as well as extinguishing the lines of one of Gotham’s great families. At the time of his disappearance, Jeremiah Arkham had no heir.

In limped along for another nineteen years, until it was finally closed down in favor of the Mariposa Mental Health Facility in neighboring Bludhaven. As it had been established on the outskirts of a city instead of on an island, it was more expansive. Not to mention the fact that the facility had been built a scant six years ago, which made the structure itself amenable to more high-tech retrofitting in the coming decades than Arkham Asylum could ever be.

There was, however, the issue of what should be done with the old Arkham Asylum itself, as well as the island upon which it was situated. The United States Army wished to build a training ground there, hoping for the complete demolition of the old system of buildings, but the Gotham City Historical Preservation Society, in conjunction with the Effort to Map Gotham’s Underground (headed by Professor Mia Mizoguchi and her patron, the billionaire heiress Cassandra Wayne) had kept them in check with red tape and lawsuits for the last eighteen months. So there it stood, a monument to suffering and turmoil sticking into the Atlantic Ocean like the nose of a curious houscat through a doorway.

But while it stood closed, it did not… at the present moment… stand empty.

The Soldier-in-Blue walked along the chipped tile floors and the peeling narrow corridors of D-Wing. There used to be iron gates every six doors, but they had been taken out and sold after the place closed down.

Their footsteps echoed down the hall as they went toward what was left of the mess hall…

...and the sound of human voices.

The Soldier-in-Blue, as well as the entire platoon of soldiers with whom they had arrived in Gotham City six days ago, had set immediately to painting every window in Arkham Asylum black. They had soundproofed the interiors of each building, as well as set up electronic counter-surveillance to assuage their fears that no one was using any sort of technological means to listen in.

Then, and only then, did they bring the equipment in.

The Soldier-in-Blue found their way to the mess hall. They knew what awaited them before they had even arrived.

A hundred soldiers, dubbed _“Squires,” _were surrounding two of their number in the middle of the hall. These two, one with blond hair and one with black, were wearing fatigue pants, and were naked from the waist up. They were sporting numerous blooming bruises and they were slick with sweat and blood, roughly a pint of which had spattered on the floor around them. 

The two men were fighting. The black-haired one balled up his fist, and heaved it into the face of the blond-haired one, sending a torrent of sweat and blood to the hard concrete floor.

For all of their life, the Soldier-in-Blue had trained with these men. Then, for the last three years, they had trained them. The assortage of Squires in this mess hall accounted for but a third of the Soldier-in-Blue’s forces in Gotham City. They had been cooped up and stir-crazy for the last few days, and the Soldier-in-Blue allowed for such diversions. They had trained with every tool at their disposal: VR simulations, shooting ranges, punching bags, weapon and obstacle courses, anabolic steroids.

The blond shook off that punch, ate another, and then blocked a third. Pushing the black-haired Squire off of him, he balled up his own fist, and let loose.

The Soldier-in-Blue could tell, from the angle and the speed, what was going to happen next.

The blond’s fist hit flush in the middle of the black-haired Squire’s face…

...pushing the sharp cartilage of his nose into his brain…

...and killing him instantly.

The black-haired Squire just… shut off. He fell straight back, his head colliding with the floor, giving off a thick thud that immediately stilled the crowd. Blood issued forth from his face like water from a low-pressure hose, spreading around his head like a halo in a Renaissance painting.

The blond Squire stood where he had been when he threw the lethal punch, rooted to the spot and afraid to breathe.

So the only sound in the Arkham Asylum mess hall was the Soldier-in-Blue parting the crowd.

They stood over the body of the black-haired Squire, and looked into the one unswollen blue eye of the blond.

There was fear there.

The Soldier-in-Blue fell to their knees, and tenderly stroked the bloody black hair of the corpse before them.

“His name,” the Soldier-in-Blue said, “was Jeremy French.”

These words had a slight echo, but the Soldier-in-Blue’s electronically distorted voice was the only sound in the mess hall..

“He was twenty-three years old,” the Soldier-in-Blue said. “Born in Huntsville, Alabama. I trained him myself. He was proficient in knife-fighting. He liked apples… and Stephen King… and _Call of Duty.”_

The Soldier-in-Blue got to their feet yet again. “We needed him.”

They looked at the silent assemblage and said “Say it.”

The hundred or so remaining Squires said, instantly and in unison, “We needed him.”

The yellow eye-slits of the Soldier-in-Blue’s helmet fell on the blond squire, who looked like he’d rather be in Hell than here.

As the Soldier-in-Blue advanced on him, they put out their right hand, and gently placed it on the blond’s chest to calm him.

“Robert Dries?”

“Yes,” The blond said with a bloody mouth. “Yes, sir, that’s my name.”

“Jeremy French was a strong man. You killed him. His strength is your strength now. When the battle comes, will his name be in your heart?”

“Yes, sir,” Robert Dries said. “It will.”

“Good,” The Soldier-in-Blue said, before turning to the rest of the Squires.

“I don’t know how the upcoming operations will go. We may win. We may lose. All of that is as up to you as it is to me. But know this…”

The Soldier-in-Blue held a silence, before they said “None of you… _None of you… _are expendable. You hold my faith, you hold my pride, you hold my dreams. I have traded my life for the privilege of commanding you. There will be a day for you past this war. There is no such thing for me. Be glad. Be joyous. Look upon one another and see what I see.”

The Soldier-in-Blue yet again found Robert Dries, and put their hands on his bulging, sweaty forearms.

“The entire point of Jeremy French’s life was to die by your hand,” the Soldier-in-Blue said. “Whether by design or by accident, it doesn’t matter. He made you stronger. Take pride in that. Don’t worry about failing me… Worry about failing _him.”_

Robert Dries was spellbound. He couldn’t even nod.

The Soldier-in-Blue spared one last glance at the congregation, before turning and leaving through the crowd the way they came in.


	9. Let the Dancers Inherit the Party

**Chapter 9: ** **Let the Dancers Inherit the Party**

**BATCAVE SOUTH**

Tim Drake sat in a metal folding chair in the med bay of the Batcave beneath Wayne Manor as Violet Paige slept beneath the Kryptonian regeneration machine. He was doing his best at reading the copy of _A Tale of Two Cities _that he’d swiped from the library upstairs. But he just kept reading the same line over and over again, the words blurring together.

He set the book down on the floor, and rubbed his eyes.

Tim was tired.

Getting busted for a murder one did not commit could do that to a fellow.

He got the call last night that someone had taken out Mother Panic, and someone needed to watch over her in the med bay while the rest of the group went about their daily lives. Tim was between cases at the moment, so he was drafted.

It was a straight shot for Tim and Conner from the jail cell directly to Wayne Manor, with a brief stopover for that awkward and irritating Robin Summit that ultimately solved nothing.

He tried sleeping last night, a duplicitous ruse that lasted an hour, so he was back down here.

Conner was in the main section of the Batcave, at the Batcomputer. He said he was doing important ARGUS stuff, but knowing Conner, that was code for playing _Minesweeper _and checking up on his Fantasy Football team.

Tim went over to the side table, where he had left his phone. He picked it up, unlocked it, and started to see if Mom or Dad had left any messages; word about how Mattie Ann was doing.

He had just breathed in when he felt a strong, soft, clammy forearm wrap around his throat. His breath sputtered in snorts out of his nose.

A woman’s voice asked “Where… _am _I?” through clenched teeth.

_Oh. Great. Violet’s awake._

Being as Tim had never met Violet, he inwardly cursed himself for assuming that their initial introduction, under these circumstances, could have gone any better.

Tim only got one strangled word out.

_“Batcave…”_

The forearm tightened. Tim now, officially, could not breathe.

“You think I’m a fucking idiot?” Violet asked. “I’ve _been _in the Batcave. This ain’t the Batcave.”

Tim knew that Mother Panic had Super Strength. She could snap his neck without meaning to. So all Tim could do was raise his hands in surrender,

Violet let up a little bit. He could breathe and talk now, but that was about it.

“You’re in… Batcave South…” Tim said in between heaving gasps.

“Batcave _South?”_

“Yeah,” Tim said. “You’ve been in Batcave North. The one under Cass’ apartment building. You’re in Batcave South. The original Batcave. The one beneath Wayne Manor.”

“Who are you?”

“Tim Drake,” he said. “I’m one of Cass’ friends. I’m a detective.”

The forearm tightened again. Not tight enough to make breathing difficult too yet again, but tight enough to show she meant business.

“If you were one of Cass’ friends, I’d have met you by now. You’re a stranger. Try again.”

Tim had had enough.

“Look,” he said. “You dated her for eight months, and we’ve never met. Who does that speak worse of, you or me?”

He could feel her stop breathing… But she finally took her forearm away. He could hear her bare feet padding back toward the bed.

“You’re not gonna turn around?” she asked.

“Judging from what was poking into my back a second ago, you are both very cold and very naked,” Tim said. “And knowing what I know about you, you’re itching to punch something. Why not the guy who copped a peek when he wasn’t supposed to?”

“Hm,” Violet said. “So you _are _a detective.”

“Cass brought some of your clothes over from The Pike after she got done telling your mom what happened to you. They’re over on the chair at the foot of the bed, in case you were looking.”

He head her feet take a couple of steps, and then the rustle of fabric. A canvas bag opening. Jeans getting shaken out.

“So who’s Tim Drake?” Violet asked. “How come he knows who Black Bat is?”

“She was Batgirl.”

“Yeah?”

“And I was Robin.”

_“Ohhhhhhh,” _Violet said. “You’re uh, you’re _Harper’s _husband, right?”

“Ex-husband,” Tim said. In lieu of the Bat-Signal, Black Bat and the others had been taking their cues from City Hall instead of the GCPD. Strictly under the radar, of course, and there are few places in municipal politics more under the radar than the office of the Deputy Mayor. Public endorsement of vigilantes was illegal in Gotham City. Had been even in Jim Gordon’s day, when they had to bring a civilian up to the roof of Gotham Central to light the Signal. 

It had worked out great. The Police under Commissioner Montoya were in the course of developing an image of independence. Though The Signal was so media and image-friendly that there were rumors circulating that public endorsement of vigilante behavior could be legalized within the coming year.

Violet had to know who Harper was. _Ipso Facto..._

She didn’t say anything until the rustling of fabric stopped. “You can turn around.”

So he did.

Standing before him was an almost forbiddingly tall and pale woman with a black undercut that culminated in a ponytail. She was wearing a tight black t-shirt that revealed surgical scars all along her forearms and her biceps. Her jeans hung loose on her.

And her face was a mess. The Kryptonian regenerator did great for subdermal injuries. Far less so with scars or the yellowing mushroom field of bruises on Violet Paige’s face.

“Who did that to you?” he asked.

“Someone with blue, shiny armor,” said Violet.

“Can you be more specific?”

“I need to be more specific than blue, shiny armor? You wanted me to, what, count the plates?”

“I was thinking somewhere along the lines of a name.”

“They weren’t in a talking mood,” Violet said as she leaned against the bed. “Come to think of it, neither was I.”

Tim nodded. “We’re gonna have to wait until Bruce gets back so he can look at your implants, see if they took any damage from Blue Shiny Armor Person. I’m not qualified, so…”

“So?”

“So,” Tim said, “avail yourself of Wayne Manor. Mind Conner in the next room, he’s playing _Minesweeper. _ And mind Cullen on the elevator, he’s spying on Conner.”

Violet looked set to wordlessly leave, but something stopped her before she’d even made it a step.

“Wait,” she said. “Conner?”

“Yeah.”

“Conner Kent?”

“Yeah.”

“Cass’ ex? The one who’s, y’know, _Superman?”_

Tim closed his eyes, feeling himself an abject fool. Two of Cass’ exes were separated by a thin wall and a few feet of corridor. The ex in front of him was spoiling for a fight after being thoroughly humiliated by a stranger in blue armor. And the ex out there could _finish _that fight.

Dreading the potential helplessness he’d feel if push-came-to-shove-came-to-punch-came-to-unconsciousness, Tim said “Yeah? What about it?”

But all that was on Violet’s face was confusion.

“No,” she said. “He can’t be.”

“I can assure you he is,” Tim said. “It’s the happiest I’ve seen Cullen in years.”

“Dude,” Violet said, “I was about to choke you out a minute ago. Are you trying to tell me that Superman was in the next room, and he didn’t _hear _it?”

Tim opened his mouth. It stayed open as thoughts raced through his head.

Because Violet had just made a very good point.

_Some detective I am..._

* * *

**MACCLENDON AVENUE**

The street was awash with the remnants of smashed watermelons. Their rinds discarded, destroyed, and painted orange and blue.

Happy Spoiler Day.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jason said in the driver’s seat of the Bentley as he slowly drove down the street. “I just washed this Goddamn thing.”

In the back seat were Cassandra Wayne and Carrie Kelley. Carrie was wearing a purple spaghetti-strap dress, while Cassandra was wearing a black sleeveless beneath a short black jacket. She had so perfectly styled her mop of black hair that it looked gracefully messy. Thank the Good Lord for both Barbara Gordon and styling tutorials on Youtube.

She looked at the blue bookbag by Carrie’s feet and asked “What’s in there?”

“Homework,” Carrie said. “Social Studies and English.”

“You have your radio in?”

Carrie pointed to her ear. “Yeah.”

“Good. Selina smuggled our work suits in. They’re above the ceiling tiles on the second stall in the Floor One ladies room.”

“Are we expecting something?” Carrie asked.

“We could be,” said Cassandra. “A girl came to see Bruce and Selina at Wayne Tower today. Her family and her hometown in North Carolina got wiped out last night.”

“Jesus.”

“And she knew that Bruce was Batman.”

_“Jesus…”_

“So we’re figuring that that’s connected with Violet getting taken out and Tim getting busted. All roads lead to here… But if they don’t, do your homework, huh?”

“Right.”

“And if you see that girl,” Cassandra said, “say hi, alright? I think she might appreciate at least _meeting _someone her own age right about now.”

“Okay,” Carrie said. “But what does she look like?”

“She looks about your age, like I said.”

Carrie just glared at her.

“It’s not my fault you don’t pay attention,” Cassandra said.

* * *

Cruising past the Bentley, invisible to all save for the hypothetical passerby who notices watermelon guts getting kicked up in a transparent wake, The Signal rode his motorcycle in stealth mode.

He was exhausted, having pulled an uneventful day shift of superheroics on his day off from work at the GCPD. Three cups of coffee (made by his wife Riko Thomas, who Duke revered as a Goddess on Earth) kept him alert.

Cassandra had given him the low-down, and he tasked himself with making invisible circuits of the block, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious.

MacClendon Avenue itself was the street upon which was located…

* * *

**THE GOTHAM ROYAL HOTEL**

In the aftermath of Black Manta’s attack on the hotel sixteen years ago, the ownership of the Gotham Royal Hotel elected to renovate its ballroom area to rid itself of the stigma of the event. Once upon a time, the joke was that the rich holding a fundraiser in Gotham City was the best way for a supervillain to come in and start shooting.

But Gotham City hadn’t had a supervillain attack in fourteen years.

The new _“recreation area” _took up the top three floors of the Gotham Royal. So large and grandiose was the renovation that the ownership didn’t officially count them as floors of the hotel at all.

On the top floor (or _“Floor Three” _as the brochures said) was where all the speeches were going to be held. It’s where most of the fancier food was. It’s where the massive ice sculpture of the masks of comedy and tragedy were located.

And it’s where Deputy Mayor Harper Row stood with her security detail as she engaged in conversation with Bruce Wayne.

“How’s Mattie Ann?” Bruce asked.

“Didn’t Tim tell you?” Harper asked. “I’m not trying to be rude, but he is shacking up at your house right now.”

“Tim told me,” Bruce said. “Now I’m asking you. Moms and dads have different answers to the same questions.”

Harper nodded. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“She’s great,” Harper said. “She’s doing well in school.”

“Is she making any friends?”

Harper winced. “A couple. But she says most of the other kids keep calling her weird.”

“Uh-oh.”

“And I have no idea what to do about that, because when I was her age, kids called _me _weird.”

“I see.”

“Did kids call you weird?”

“I was a billionaire from birth,” Bruce said. “No one called me anything. To my face at least. But if I had to engage in introspection and self-critique, yes, I was probably a weird kid.”

“Oh.”

“But still,” Bruce said, “I can think of worse footsteps in which to follow than yours.”

“Can she skip to the part where she comes out ahead?” Harper asked. “Because it sucked getting here.”

Bruce’s gaze felt glassy. A dreaminess fell over him. Time was, he’d ignore it, but sixteen years of therapy told him that every once in a while, it was to be indulged.

He looked over Harper’s shoulder, seeing that the two jar-headed men in her security detail were conversing with each other, before he spoke.

“You know,” Bruce said softly, “the first time I met you was on a cold rooftop. You had a pair of taser pistols you made yourself, and you couldn’t afford to go to college. In fact, we were about to stake out a fundraiser not unlike this one.”

Harper rolled her eyes, and straightened out her white dress. “Don’t start that _‘I’m-proud-of-you’ _shit.”

“Okay.”

“You’re not built for it.”

“I know… But _you _know, right?”

“I know,” Harper said. “And thank you.”

“The question I have,” Bruce said, “is that… well… I’ve seen mock-ups and prototypes from WayneTech. Luke Fox still sends them to me. They’re trying, but all the resources the people in R&D have, and they can’t come close to what you did in a dilapidated Bleake Island apartment bedroom fifteen years ago when you were a teenager.”

Bruce noticed Harper’s posture slacken, but still he pressed on.

“Those taser pistols could have revolutionized non-lethal weaponry in America,” he said. “The initial patent would have made you a millionaire, and the tech built off of that might even have made you a billionaire.”

Harper didn’t look like she was going to say anything.

“And it’s not just WayneTech,” Bruce said. “I mean, I’m not angling for tech for my company. It’s not even technically mine anymore. You could have sold it to Stagg Industries. Or LexCorp. They’re the good guys now, after what Selina did to them. So the question I have is… Why didn’t you?”

Bruce expected something snide. Something fiery. Something along the lines of the well-deserved anti-capital stump speech that got Alysia Yeoh elected mayor of Gotham City.

But instead, Harper looked glum. Sad, even. Before she finally said, in a soft voice barely above a whisper:

“If I did that, then… then they’re not _mine _anymore.”

* * *

The floor beneath that, Floor Two, served as a general dining and relaxation area. This was where Gotham’s wealthy elite ate hors-d'oeuvres, hung out, and talked about whatever the bored, the moneyed, and the well-dressed had to say for themselves.

Selina Wayne was not watching the wealthy.

Selina Wayne was watching two fifteen-year-old girls meet for the first time.

The handshake between Carrie Kelley and Aaliyah Ramsey had just broken.

“So anyway,” Carrie said, holding up her bookbag. “I’m gonna try and find a dark corner to get my homework done in.”

Aaliyah ran a finger beneath the shoulder strap of her black dress and said “Okay. It was nice meeting you.”

“Yeah, you too.”

And off she went, among the throng of the moneyed.

Aaliyah leaned back on the table at which she and Selina were situated. She absent-mindedly grabbed an hors-d'oeuvre from the small pile she had amassed through the early stages of the evening, and started munching.

Once she was done, Aaliyah simply said “Homework.”

Selina didn’t say anything.

“I _had _homework,” Aaliyah said. “I had a German class this morning. Now I don’t have a German class. Now I don’t have a _school.”_

Selina noticed that Aaliyah’s face was free from emotion when she said this.

Hell, she even let off a chuckle.

“Since I woke up from that nap in your office,” Aaliyah said, “it has just been a storm of… of dress-fitting, and hair-styling, and just… eating a mountain of food. I mean, I’m trying to figure out if I’m dreaming, if I wake up in my bedroom in North Carolina in three… two… one.”

Aaliyah looked around. Nothing changed. The world did not vanish from existence with her awakening back home. There was no awakening to be had.

“I’ve been so busy,” Aaliyah said, “that I haven’t been able to think about what’s happened.”

“Is thinking a thing you want to do right now?” Selina asked.

“I’m gonna have to think about it eventually.”

“Know the thing about eventually?”

“What?”

“It’s gonna happen,” Selina said, _“eventually.”_

The half-hearted suggestion of a smile appeared on Aaliyah’s face.

“For now,” Selina said, “you can just sit, eat, and people-watch.”

Aaliyah’s smile slowly turned into a grimace. “And what people they are.”

Selina snorted.

“I’m sorry,” said Aaliyah.

“No, no, you’re fine.”

“I mean you’re being so nice to me, and I just… so desperately want to make fun of your friends.”

“These people aren’t my friends,” Selina said. “Say the first thing that comes to mind. Right now.”

“That I feel superior to these people in every way except the one that matters,” Aaliyah said.

Selina laughed. _Hard. _She almost snorted champagne onto her purple dress.

_No. Not purple. Eggplant._

She put her hand on Aaliyah’s shoulder, and was caught in a snatch of introspection.

Selina liked Aaliyah. She didn’t seem self-absorbed, she didn’t have her head in her ass, she seemed at least decent. Selina didn’t know what depths to this girl there might be. Maybe, if on one of those infinite parallel Earths she had become acquainted with fifteen years ago during the Battle of Founders Island, Selina and Aaliyah would have been the same age. Selina and Aaliyah would have been steadfast friends. Selina and Aaliyah would have been torn apart by some high school boy, only to come back together again, stronger than ever, once he’d exposed himself as an asshole.

But as it stood, upon the humble expanse of Earth 803, Selina Wayne was fifty-one and Aaliyah Ramsey was fifteen.

Aaliyah was strong.

But she would need guidance.

And maybe… just maybe...

A brick wall arose in Selina’s mind.

_No._

_Stop._

_Don’t even think about it._

What she was thinking must have showed on her face, because Aaliyah asked “Are you alright?”

* * *

Among the purple and black clad well-to-do milling about Floor Three, waiting for whatever the hell this was, one stood out for her red dress and general air of unfamiliarity.

The guest list had her identified as one _“Natalie Venora.”_

Stephanie Brown knew the red dress was a bad idea, she just fucking knew it. The eyes of rich old farts and the resentment of rich old bags slithering down her body like a bath of slime.

Life would be so much easier if she could pull off the butch look.

She tried it, though. She really tried. Shaved her head when she was twenty-one, and started wearing wife-beater undershirts beneath black leather jackets. She even went to thrift stores in places like Dublin and Paris to get pre-owned jeans with paint and motor oil stains on them, even though she had no artistic inclination whatsoever and had no automotive savvy to speak of.

There were two problems with this.

The first was that while she was a beautiful woman, short hair made Stephanie look like a duck.

The second was that, well, the men of Europe must have been _really _attracted to ducks, because her new look got her an abundance of male attention. **Which was the exact opposite of what she was going for.**

Stephanie got to the Fuck-It Stage, and started dressing like the icy female business executives on old American soap operas once her hair grew back out. The male attention dropped precipitously… save for the attention of a certain kind of older wealthy male.

The kind that filled Floor Three at the current moment.

Stephanie sighed, scanned the room, and found Jerry Timo.

Jerry had phoned earlier in the day once she had settled in at the hotel, telling her to find a dress because they were going to a big to-do at the Gotham Royal. That’s where their contact for the Kaznian deal was going to be. Jerry got Natalie Venora onto the guest list.

Stephanie’s heels were loud enough to heald doom as she walked up to Jerry. “So where is he?”

Jerry had been stuffing his weaselly face with crudite, getting some of it down the front of his (most likely rented) tuxedo. At least the guy had enough deportment in his sleazy brain to swallow his food before he started talking.

“I saw him a minute ago,” Jerry said, “but now I don’t know where he is.”

“Did you lose him?” Stephanie asked. “Because if I put my thinking cap on, I’m pretty sure you just abandoned him while you were looking for something to eat.”

“And that’s why we don’t pay you to put on your thinking cap,” Jerry said. “We pay you to put on your… uh… fighting people… uh…”

“Need more time?”

“Shut up.”

“Need me to get an orange vest and a hard hat? Because it looks like your joke needs a whole construction site.”

“Shut. Up.”

“You gonna go find him?” Stephanie asked.

“I’m tryna--”

“You gonna go find him?”

“I just need--”

“You gonna go find him?”

“Fine,” Jerry said, digging into his chestnut brown hair to scratch his scalp. “I’ll go find him.”

“The standing around fee is not included in my six million dollars.”

“I’ll find him if you let me.”

Stephanie shooed him away.

As he left, she saw a female attendant holding a tray of champagne flutes.

“Hey,” Stephanie said. “Over here.”

The attendant walked over to her. “Nice dress.”

“Thanks,” Stephanie said. She fished a hundred dollar bill out of her clutch and placed it on the tray as she took a flute.

“Oh, you don’t have to,” the attendant said. “The Gotham Royal’s paying us double time tonight. No tipping required.”

“Then be sure to spend that c-note before you tattle on me,” Stephanie said. “Your light bill isn’t gonna pay itself.”

The attendant nodded, and said “Thank you… Oh, and Happy Spoiler Day.”

The attendant was too far away from Stephanie, so she couldn’t take her Goddamned money back for saying that.

She huffed, and downed half of her champagne. In absence of anyone interesting to talk to, she elected to stare at the wall.

The limited time she had spent on Gotham City’s streets today was like roaming through a haunted house. Not a real one. If this world could house The Spectre, Zatanna, and the Army of Nemesis, it had to house ghosts.

No, it was like roaming through a fake haunted house. One tailored just to her, run by a charity, and manned by bored and underpaid high school kids in shitty zombie costumes. The kind where it’s pitch black, reliant on jump scares, and one had to take short and rapid steps within the gloom, enabling one not to bump into anything and hopefully ensuring a rapid exit.

This city, _her _city, had waned. It had lost a million people. It had shrunken, decayed, forgotten the faces of those who once protected it. 

Back in the old days, even when times were at their worst, she could still remember graffiti of the Bat Symbol on the sides of subway cars, buildings, the backs of dump trucks. But she had been on the lookout today. She had been counting… and she didn’t see a single one.

There was someone new. Someone called _“The Signal.” _ And she had no idea who he was.

All that was left of the old days was the scattered corpses of watermelons painted orange and blue, that she had been stepping over and into during her time on the streets today. A foul and messy monument to her first, and greatest bad deed.

Stephanie polished off the last of her champagne, set the flute down on the table in front of her, and tried to empty her brain as the sound of a woman’s voice on a microphone at the front of the room made itself known.

“Excuse me,” the woman said, “May I have your attention everyone? I’m Nora Fields, chairwoman of the Gotham Ballet. I’d like to welcome you to the annual fundraiser for The Pennyworth Fund.”

Stephanie’s mind was filled with whatever the opposite of a vacuum is. All solid and all screaming.

_The _What _Fund?_

She turned to look at the podium. A middle-aged blond woman in a purple dress was standing at the mic.

“And now,” Nora said, “for the keynote speech, I’d like to introduce the chairwoman of The Pennyworth Fund, Miss Cassandra Wayne.”

Applause.

A beautiful woman of Asian descent in a short black jacket over a black dress stepped to the podium. She had on a pair of blocky glasses with black frames, and she had to adjust the microphone to make up for her rather miniscule height. Her short black hair was just messy enough to advertise that the labor spent upon it was painstaking.

And the screaming solid within Stephanie Brown’s heart shot out to her extremities. The one thing she had been hoping to avoid had just happened. And she didn’t want it to happen because she knew how little she would protest when the present time came.

It was Cass. She had matured instead of aged. She had not diminished. If anything she had strengthened. Beneath those black clothes she advertised a self-containment. A coiled strength that, once upon a time, could dodge bullets and punch through plexiglass.

Natalie Venora was lost. All of the practiced bravado and and worldly experience was blown away like dust in the wake of a strong breath. All that was left was Stephanie Brown.

And Stephanie Brown, once again, was a mere peasant in audience of the most beautiful girl she had ever seen.

Cass had note cards in front of her. She adjusted her glasses and cleared her throat.

She was going to read. Stephanie’s mind grew alight at this fact.

_Cassandra Cain is going to read._

_She’s going to read something with her eyes, and say the words out loud. Those are two things she wasn’t good at the last time I saw her. She learned. She got better._

_And did the Ballet Lady say that her name was Cassandra _Wayne?

_BRUCE ADOPTED HER!_

_HOLY SHIT!_

And just as she marveled at how far Cass had come, how firmly she was in the happiness that Stephanie had wished for her… _something else _started to settle in. And as it settled in, her jaw, which she had only been vaguely aware was hanging open, slowly drew shut.

Cass had grown. She’d improved. Become stronger, smarter, more… _everything._

And she had done it without Stephanie Brown.

Cassandra Wayne walked in the light while Stephanie had had to leave her home and get a fake name in order to continue existing under the conditions she had selected for her own sanity and emotional well-being.

Seeing Cass there… Stephanie knew how much she had given up.

She didn’t know why resentment was casting a thin sheen of frost over everything. She just knew it was.

Back when she was a teenager, whenever she was bumming around bookstores or supermarkets, she’d see girls on the covers of magazines so beautiful, so enticing, that it caused her a weird sort of pain. In spite of herself, in these public places, she’d turn these magazines around so these unblinking stills of sheer beauty wouldn’t stare at her anymore. Wouldn’t make her long and ache for what she couldn’t be… and what she couldn’t have.

And this was one of those times.

She tore her eyes away and made for the exit as Cassandra’s voice, rough and husky and just… just _everything, _said: “

I’m sorry. I, uh… I suck at giving speeches.”

As the audience full of rich people gently and indulgently laughed, Stephanie hoped that Cassandra didn’t see her.

* * *

Cassandra saw her.

She couldn’t _not _see her. She was wearing a red dress in a sea of black and purple.

The woman in red stood slightly stoop-shouldered. As though the memory of how to stand up straight had only vaguely settled in her brain, to be remembered and forgotten at a moment’s notice.

There was only one woman she had ever met who had ever stood like that.

_It’s Stephanie…_

Across an ocean of time and a mountain range of growth and experience, Cassandra could see the mute, illiterate ninja who had never _really _gone away, never _really _gave up, holding a dusty office in the back chambers of her thoughts like a tenured professor.

And she was grinning. Cassandra _Wayne _had risen to prominence, but only now, at this late date, did Cassandra _Cain _finally win.

Against odds that verged on the impossible, her best friend had finally come home.

She looked different. Her hair was brown instead of blonde, for one thing, curling down both of her pale shoulders.

Time had been good to her. It had hacked the spare marble from her being, exposing the intricate and glorious sculpture that had always been beneath. She hadn’t aged. She had merely reached her apotheosis.

Steph had always been beautiful, but seeing her now, Cassandra had to reckon that the definition of the word would have to bend and warp to meet her, no matter how she changed.

But beyond all she had gone through, the pain she must have felt that would have driven her from Gotham City in the first place, she still… _stood _that way. Taking the rules of posture as mere suggestion to be flouted or adhered to depending on the direction of the wind.

Cassandra felt as though she were in the process of learning something. Feelings may rage, glory may fade, pain may roar, but every last person on Earth still held the old versions of themselves locked away inside.

_How wonderful…_

_How horrible…_

Even from this distance, she could see the fog clear from Stephanie’s eyes. See her mouth close. See her shoulders bunch up. See the unawareness in her form vanish, to be replaced by something that looked an awful lot like… _Anger?_

As Steph made her way to the exit possessed by something negative, a thought, poignant in its simplicity, subsumed Cassandra Wayne.

_Why?_

Only to be replaced by another thought. Equally simple. Equally poignant.

_Don’t go…_

Steph was halfway out when Cassandra finally remembered where she was: Under the accusatory and curious stares of the cream of Gotham City’s crop, who so generously deigned to part with a pittance of their opulence so that poor kids could learn something that made them happy.

“I’m sorry,” Cassandra said. “I, uh… I suck at giving speeches.”

* * *

_Signage._

_No fucking signage._

_If I knew what this was, and who would be here, I’d have run screaming from this Goddamn place as soon as I got here._

Stephanie made her way through the alcove as the crowd politely laughed at Cassandra’s admitted deficiencies in public speaking.

And she ran into Jerry and a man who seemed to be in his mid-fifties. Gray brush cut and a tuxedo identical to Jerry’s.

“Good evening, Miss Venora,” said the man with a thick Kaznian accent. “I am Zander Kalchik, and I am--”

“Yeah, yeah,” Stephanie said, cutting him off. “We have to go. Now.”

“What?” Jerry asked.

“I must say,” Zander Kalchik said. “This is highly irregular.”

Stephanie rolled her eyes. “How much are you paying me?”

“Six million dollars,” said Kalchik.

“Right,” Stephanie said. “You’re paying me six mill to tell you that we need to get the fuck out of Dodge.”

“I thought we were in Gotham City,” Kalchik said. “I know nothing about this _Dodge.”_

More eye-rolling from Stephanie. So much so that it hurt.

“Let me put this in terms you understand,” she said. “You tripped and fell into the most dangerous place in this city. Right here. Right now. We need to be gone, and we need to be gone _five minutes ago.”_

* * *

**MACCLENDON AVENUE**

The Signal had to slow his bike to get past the police presence in front of the Gotham Royal. Roughly thirty were out front, and from his count, he reckoned that sixty more were on the two side streets.

He shook his head as he invisibly made it to the checkpoint. His wife’s coffee was wearing off. He weighed the pros and cons of stopping by Jitters and picking up an espresso. He had the strongest suspicion that nothing was going to happen tonight, besides some swell in a tux puking on the street in front of the hotel after having too much expensive hooch.

Both fate and Gotham City have a habit of cursing those who make assumptions of this great burgh’s temper.

The Signal saw the explosion and debris from the renovated cafe front across the street from the hotel, he felt the shockwave that knocked out his stealth capabilities and totaled his motorcycle, before he heard the deafening explosion. He saw chunks of concrete and shards of glass render his fellow police officers into red meat as he fell to the pavement.

His ears ringing, bleeding, looking up, The Signal saw the upper floors of the building that housed the cafe seem to sprout black tendrils.

_Ziplines. _

Each carrying a contingent of black-clad soldiers into the upper floors, where the fundraiser was being held.

And as his eyes cantered downward, he saw silhouettes emerging from the miasmic dust of the destroyed cafe.

More black-clad soldiers in body armor and balaclavas. Each holding an AR-15.

They leveled their weapons at the police officers struggling to their feet in the wake of the explosion…

...and opened fire.

* * *

**THE GOTHAM ROYAL HOTEL ROOFTOP**

Even over the whirring of the helicopter, the Soldier-in-Blue could hear the explosions and the gunshots.

The vanguard had done its job.

In the interior of the chopper, the Soldier-in-Blue shared space with three of their elite commandos. Four, if you counted the pilot. But it was the fifth among their number that was of particular interest.

It was a well-built man in a tight blue t-shirt. He had a burlap bag over his head. Judging from the mottled brown stains on the bag’s front, it would not be unreasonable to assume that this mystery man was beaten soundly before the bag was applied, letting his blood seep into the fabric.

The helicopter hovered over the the Gotham Royal’s rooftop. The Soldier-in-Blue knew that the roof wouldn’t support the weight of the chopper, but it didn’t really need to.

The Soldier-in-Blue shoved the beaten man out of the interior of the helicopter. He fell a few feet to the rooftop. The spinning propellers were so loud that they couldn’t even hear him grunt on impact.

“Move,” the Soldier-in-Blue said as they jumped out of the chopper and onto the roof. “You’re the star of the show. And places is in five minutes.”


	10. Nightfall

**Chapter 10: Nightfall**

**BATCAVE SOUTH**

Conner stood off to the side of the Batcomputer while Tim was keeping the newly-awakened Violet Paige busy with conversation over by the collection of Robin suits in glass cases.

He had his phone to his ear. After a few seconds, the person he was calling picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Clark. It’s Conner.”

“Conner!” said Clark Kent, as though he was surprised, as though he didn’t actually have a screen on his own phone that told him that it was, in fact, Conner calling him.

“How have you been?” Clark asked. “How’s the life of Secret Agent Man?”

“It’s, uh… It’s fine. How are the kids?”

“Jon wants to try out for baseball,” Clark said, “but we have to talk to him about how to reel back his powers in situations like that. Lara is heading for the debate team. Given how few arguments with her that Lois and I win on merit, she’ll take the school by storm. Heavens, she could be president one day.”

“And Lois?”

“Wonderful,” Clark said. “Fearless. Every last bit the woman I married.”

Conner could hear the smile in Clark’s voice. This was a guy who woke up every morning and made a conscious decision to be the best husband and father he could be. This was a guy who said that his daughter could be president one day, and _actually believed it! _ He gave up his life as a superhero-- _the _superhero-- to do that. At once, Conner felt old, staring down the barrel of time itself. He wondered if he could ever meet someone that brought that about in him, and the prospects were dour.

“Anyway,” Conner said, shaking off the sepulchral presence of his own lack of an interior life, “I called to talk to you about the Batcave.”

“The one beneath Wayne Manor?”

“Yeah,” Conner said. “I can’t seem to use my X-Ray Vision or my Hearing in here at all. I didn’t notice it at first, but…”

“But you still get phone reception?”

“ARGUS phones do.”

“Touche,” Clark said. “Anyway, yeah, the Batcave’s great, isn’t it?” 

“Wait,” Conner said. “You mean you _know?”_

“Sure I do,” Clark said. “Back when Bruce and I first met, before we were friends, he had the entire interior of the Batcave treated with some kind of special spray. A ceramic-encased lead polymer. Safe enough for humans, but I can’t see or hear in or out.”

“And after the two of you got to know each other, you didn’t ask him to remove it?”

“After the two of us got to know each other,” Clark said, “I specifically asked him not to.”

_“What?” _Conner asked, unable to keep the incredulity out of his voice.

Clark sighed, his breath coming in as a static hiss.

“Superman’s life is a stressful one,” he said. “You’re Superman, so you know this. You have no choice but to hear and see every soul crying out to be saved. And if you had a place you could go every eight months or so, for just a couple of hours at a time, even just to read a book, I don’t think anyone could judge you for doing it.”

“And you used to come down into this dungeon just to read by yourself?” Conner asked.

_“‘Used to?’” _asked Clark. “I still do it _now. _ Actually _reading _instead of speed-reading like Wally and Bart. If Lois can have her spa days, I can have my Batcave book days. It’s really peaceful.”

Conner was about to say something but he stopped himself. Clark was right. It _was _peaceful. The thing that told Conner something was up here was that for the first time in living memory, he didn’t feel tense.

“Anyway,” Conner said, “That’s why I called. I’m down here with Tim and Mother Panic, and it weirded me out.”

“Alright,” Clark said. “Glad I could help. Stop on by the farm whenever you get the chance. I’m sure Jon and Lara would love to hear ARGUS stories from their Uncle Conner. So would I, as a matter of fact.”

They’d had arguments about this, with Conner saying whatever he learned at ARGUS was classified. To which Clark had replied that the only reason the Justice League allowed Conner to take the job in the first place was to hold ARGUS accountable in the wake of Amanda Waller. And it wasn’t like Lois could attribute any story she wished to write to one anonymous source. Nevertheless, Conner bought a roll of those HI, MY NAME IS stickers, and whenever professional pride reared its ugly head down at the Hamilton County Kent farm, he wrote _“OFF THE RECORD” _on one of them, and placed it on his chest. Lois Lane did not appreciate the gesture.

“Will do,” Conner said. “Whenever I can.”

“Wonderful,” said Clark.

They exchanged their goodbyes and hung up.

Conner walked back to Tim and Violet. Even from this distance, he could hear them.

“You can _not _be serious,” Violet said.

“I am,” said Tim in reply.

“I refuse to believe you.”

“Your belief is not required for the truth to be the truth.”

“Then can we now?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because _no.”_

“What’s going on?” Conner asked.

“Before God and man,” Violet said, “before God and _Superman, _Tim is telling me lies.”

“I’m not lying,” Tim said as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“About what?” Conner asked.

Violet pointed to the immense monitor of the Batcomputer. “See that?”

“Yeah,” said Conner.

“That’s the biggest Goddamned monitor I’ve ever seen,” Violet said. “What’s the resolution on that?”

“I don’t know,” Tim said. “Bruce actually still gets replacement parts sent here from WayneTech. It’s not like a regular monitor where you can just buy a new one. It’s built into the rock of the cave. I don’t know the specs of what he has now.”

“But it’s still big,” Violet said.

“Point being?” asked Conner.

“Point being,” Violet said, “is that Tim has the gall to tell me that he spent some prime teenage years sitting down here alone in this cave when he was Robin, and not once… not _once… _did he ever watch porn on it.”

“Annnnd… this has to do with what?” Conner asked.

“Well,” said Violet, putting her hands on her hips, “you only get to live the one time.”

“That,” Tim said, “is _categorically _untrue. Just look at the first Superman.”

“Or Hawkman.”

“Or Hawk _woman.”_

“Or Hal Jordan.”

“Resurrection Man. That’s even in the name.”

“Ra’s al Ghul.”

“Hamilton Hill.”

“Jason Todd, if you want to get technical about it.”

Violet held up her hand to silence them. “The fact remains, lads… What do you want to do with your evening?”

* * *

**THE GOTHAM ROYAL HOTEL**

Three men, wearing black from head-to-toe and armed with pistols, stormed through the entrance of the main Floor Three recreation area.

Most of the people here attending the Pennyworth Fund event were either middle-aged or elderly. Which meant that most of them knew that when armed men barged into a gathering of rich people in Gotham City, one was best served to put one’s hands up and remain silent.

But Harper saw James DelMonte walking toward the three armed men.

James DelMonte was a tech start-up millionaire who had donated to Alysia Yeoh’s mayoral campaign to gain himself street cred, much to the chagrin of his fellow tech magnates.

James DelMonte was only thirty.

Which meant that James DelMonte was wholly unfamiliar with how supervillainy worked in Gotham City.

Harper felt the words coming out of her mouth purely of their own accord. “Jimmy, stay qu--”

“Look,” James said, still walking toward the three armed men. “No matter how much you’re being paid, I’m sure I can--”

Armed Man Number One raised his pistol and fired three deafening shots.

As the assembled screamed, Jimmy DelMonte’s chest imploded and turned red. He fell on his ass in a manner most undignified, and died in a sitting-up position, drooling blood onto what was left of his shirt.

“You have to understand,” Armed Man Number One said over the din of terrified rich people, “that we don’t give a fuck about you! We don’t give a fuck about your money! We just give a fuck about your silence! You stay quiet, you get to live until the job is done. Now… You!”

Armed Man Number One swung around and pointed his gun directly at Harper.

It was strange. He had murdered Jimmy DelMonte as casually as one would discard a paper towel, but when Harper looked into the blue eyes of Armed Man Number One, she saw… _hesitation?_

**There was no hesitation in the eyes of Harper Row.**

She reached out, shoved the hand that held the gun up into the air with her left hand, and used her right to punch him in the face, and draw back from the swing to elbow him in the _other _side of the face…

_THWACK! THWACK!_

...in two swift motions.

Once her arm was back, she landed a thundering shot to his throat, causing him to come to a wheezing collapse… and drop his gun perfectly into her left hand.

She twirled, giving her enough momentum to scale the gun on its side, directly into the bridge of the nose of Armed Man Number Three. He dropped to his knees and moaned, but he was still in the game.

Which left Armed Man Number Two as the only one still standing.

As his gun arm rose, she came out with a roundhouse kick (ripping her white dress) to his hand. It wasn’t powerful enough to get him to drop the gun, but it was strong enough to unbalance him and turn him around a little.

To make up for the height differential, she jumped, wrapped her arm around his head and shifted her weight back, bringing him down to the floor with her. Head first.

His skull made a sickening thud when it made impact with the floor. The force rendered him immediately unconscious, causing him to drop the gun.

Harper rolled out from underneath the unconscious Armed Man Number Two, got to her feet in a flash, and looked at Armed Man Number Three. He was on his knees. He was using one hand to catch the blood from his nose streaming beneath the black balaclava he wore… and he was using his other to reach for one of the two discarded pistols on the floor.

She reached over to the table next to her, picked up two cans of Soder Cola, and threw them one at a time.

The first one hit his fingers so hard that over the sound of the impact in his screams, she swore she could hear fingers breaking.

But the second can bounced off the crown of his head so hard that it bounced another two and a half feet in the air, and even opened and started spewing light brown fizz before it hit the ground.

Armed Man Number Three was unconscious in a pool of sticky room temperature soda, and his own blood.

Harper could only vaguely feel the smile spreading on her face.

She wasn’t even sweating.

She hadn’t lost a step.

It was like she hadn’t even retired at all.

She turned around, however, and saw something that wiped the smile off her face.

The two identical jar-headed men who made up her security detail we standing there in frozen shock at what had just occurred, their hands hovering over their jackets, a still life of two professionals reaching for their pieces.

These were the men the city paid to protect the Deputy Mayor.

Harper huffed at the two of them, and asked _“Really?”_

* * *

Black Bat did not want to be seen.

Cassandra had already been on Floor Two, searching in vain for the phantom of Stephanie Brown in a red dress, when the shit went down. She stormed into the ladies room to find Carrie already in one of the stalls, changing into her Robin costume.

While Robin went up to Floor Three, Black Bat disappeared above the ceiling tiles of Floor Two, switching her cowl to its thermal vision lenses, and spying beneath.

She could tell that the heat signatures beneath belonged to the rich hostages, while the ones who were pacing back and forth in a state of agitation belonged to the hostage takers, the soldiers in black.

Black Bat came to a stop in a large congregation area that was bereft of tables or chairs. The red blobby signatures of the hostages just stood there, stock still, like statues.

She could work with that.

Black Bat dug three smoke pellets out of her utility belt. They matched up with the VI in her cowl. She set coordinates on a wireframe map that sprang up before her vision in her cowl’s lenses. When she dropped these pellets, they would go precisely where she wanted them to.

She formed a fist around them… took a deep breath… and used the fist holding the pellets to punch through the ceiling tile.

Black Bat let go of the pellets. The first flew four feet north. The second flew five feet to the left. The third flew eight feet to the right.

They were fast-acting. Within a handful of seconds, a large patch of Floor Two was covered in non-lethal, non-hazardous smoke.

Only then, did Black Bat descend.

The hostages stood rooted to the spot, not even bothering to get down on the ground. Whether it was a human issue or a strictly sheltered and wealth-related one, Black Bat could not possibly relate.

The soldiers, on the other hand, moved with purpose within the fog.

They had thermals too.

_What fun…_

There were seven of them in this section of Floor Two. She landed directly on top of one of them. One well-placed kick to the temple later, and the number was down to six.

Two of the soldiers barrelled toward her. She whipped out two Taser Batarangs mounted in the wrists of her gauntlets and threw them. They hit center mass. The two soldiers jittered in place, groaning for a bit, before they dropped.

Black Bat could hear movement behind her.

She flung her left fist around, judging the distance and height perfectly, and clocked a soldier in the jaw with enough force to crack cement. As he screamed, she grabbed his right arm. Black Bat gave a sharp tug, dislocating his shoulder, causing him to scream louder.

In between two of the stock-still hostages, she saw another soldier, debating whether he should go between them, or around.

That moment of hesitation was all she needed.

Black Bat shoved the soldier she had in her grip in between the two hostages, and into the arms of the one still trying to make up his mind.

As the broken-jawed soldier finally passed out from pain and shock, the soldier holding him dropped him, and looked up.

Black Bat had already gotten a running start. She jumped and drove a sharp, armored knee right into his sternum.

She felt the armor he was wearing give way beneath her knee. He moaned softly, and collapsed to the floor. The likely diagnosis was two floating ribs and a chipped sternum. Breathing was going to be excruciating for a few weeks. He wouldn’t be getting up, and if by some miracle he did, he’d have been as gentle and peaceful as a lamb with a whole lot of friends.

Black Bat looked up to see the sixth soldier careening toward her.

She leaned back and stuck her foot out, tripping the poor bastard.

As she turned around, Black Bat shoved him into the wall. She grabbed the pistol out of his holster, and cracked him across the face with it, causing him to spill to the carpet with as much grace as a stream of chunky salsa falling off of a waitress’s tray. And with a rather similar sound.

Which just left the seventh and final soldier, which she could detect easily with her thermals, because his was the only heat signature that was moving.

Black Bat flicked off the safety of the pistol she was holding, aimed, and fired…

...into the ceiling…

...destroying the light fixture above him, and showering him with shards of glass..

This was what finally caused the hostages to hit the deck, while the seventh soldier was the only one still standing, momentarily distracted by the glass falling over his head.

And this momentary distraction was all Black Bat needed.

She covered the distance like lightning, rearing back and dropping the gun as she did so. And as soon as the soldier finally got a chance to look at her, she used her strength and momentum to drive her right elbow directly into his chin.

He spun, pirouetting in a moment of accidental grace, before he crumpled into a rather unlikely cross-legged sitting position. The problem was that he had done it so quickly that the speed caused his upper body to rebound up, ultimately sending him to the floor. His head made a gruesome _THUMP! _when it landed.

The gunshot was most likely going to send the rest of the soldiers on this floor to her position.

_Good…_

Black Bat got more smoke pellets ready.

* * *

Selina ran as fast as she could into the interior of Floor Three. She called behind her to Aaliyah.

_“Come on!”_

They both hustled in dress shoes past people who were gunning it in the opposite direction, until they made it to a nondescript beige wall next to a janitor’s closet.

Selina pressed a small side button on her gold watch three times, until a small panel in the wall shifted and opened.

Aaliyah stood there gobsmacked. “The _fuck?”_

This was the first time Selina had heard Aaliyah drop an F bomb. She was fitting in already.

“What?” Selina asked. “Never seen a top-secret control room in a luxury hotel before? Get in before it isn’t top secret anymore.”

Once she had sealed the secret door behind them, Selina turned to see a desk and two chairs. She reached beneath the desk and pushed a small, concealed button.

The air above the desk came alive with a series of images. It was the holographic feed from every security camera on the three floors of the new recreation area.

“Bruce and I paid for the renovation, on the caveat that that we had this room built,” Selina said. “That’s the thing about Batman. He needs to be prepared.”

“And the hotel just let you... _spy _on the people up here?” Aaliyah asked.

Selina secured an earpiece from the desk drawer. “You mean they indulged two eccentric billionaires who were giving them money? Yes. Yes they did.”

They both sat down. Selina put her finger to her ear.

“Catwoman online. Anybody read me?”

“Hey Catwoman,” said a young woman’s voice in her ear. “It’s Robin.

“How you doing, Robin?”

“Great,” Robin said. “I’m about to do my baton twirling routine. Hope the judges like it.”

* * *

Robin emerged into a room full of soldiers on Floor Three. She had her hands behind her back beneath her cape. She seemed to be bobbing on her feet, under the sway of a rock soundtrack that only she could hear.

_First step: walk in with confidence…_

Five soldiers had backed a collection of rich folks next to a wall. Some of them had tears in their eyes.

“Gentlemen,” Robin said with a smile on her face. “May I have your attention please?”

The five soldiers looked at her with dull shock.

“My name,” she said, “is Robin. And I will be your instructor for the evening.”

Two of the five soldiers just looked at each other. All of them holstered their weapons.

With a flourish, Robin unveiled what was beneath her cape.

It was a cane. Thirty-seven-and-a-half inches long. The kind seen in hospitals and nursing homes the world over. The chief difference being, however, that it was made of steel, and the tip came down into a metal point instead of a rubber flat.

“This,” Robin said, “is a threaded cane.”

Robin bent, almost as if to bow, sticking the cane straight up behind her.

“And _this… _is how it’s _used.”_

With a grand motion, Robin brought the tip of the threaded cane down to the floor, and the length of it divided into sharp segments.

She whirled around, and the segments of the cane extended from one another, connected by a strong elastifiber thread core.

Part cane, part, whip, all dangerous. And in a one-on-five fight, the range and confusion it provided may be the very thing separating life from death.

The speed of Robin’s whirl sent segments of the cane into the wall, tearing chunks out of it and kicking up a plaster cloud that blinded the first soldier, who had been standing near.

Robin used this moment he took to clear his eyes to jump, bound off the wall with one foot, and kick him in the face with the other. The green pixie boot hit the sweet spot of the chin, and he dropped like a marionette with its strings cut.

As soon as she landed, however, a second soldier cleared enough ground to send an elbow into her ribs. She let out a low _“OOF!” _but not all of her breath left her.

Her bounce off the wall served as momentum as she brought up her right arm, sending the segments of the threaded cane up in an arc.

The sharp segments tore the fabric off of the body armor the second soldier was wearing, and as he backed up, Robin pushed a button on the cane’s handle.

The segments retracted, making the cane one solid piece again, and she savagely brought it down on the crown of the second soldier’s head.

He staggered. He groaned. But he didn’t fall.

Robin brought the cane back up. The reverberation as it hit his chin and knocked his head back (and the rest of him into unconsciousness) vibrated in her right shoulder.

With the second soldier dealt with, the three other soldiers advanced on her.

Robin decided to take the one in the middle.

She slammed the tip of the cane on the carpet, segmenting it again, and gave a backhand flourish.

The segments of the cane extended, and the sharp tip almost hit the crotch of the third soldier in the middle. He doubled over in shock, and she could hear the resultant sigh of relief in the wake of the near-miss.

Robin brought it back in, and whirled again, sending the segments of the cane at their heads.

The two soldiers on the side hit the dirt… But the one on the middle was still in the process of coming back up from his near-nuts experience. The segments of the cane wrapped snugly around his head.

Robin gave a sharp tug, reeling him in.

As he staggered toward her, she got a running start, jumped, and extended her right leg. One brutal kick to the face later, and the third soldier was down.

As the fourth soldier bounded toward her, Robin quickly unraveled the cane from the third soldier’s head, pressed the button on the grip, and held the newly whole cane out in front of her.

The fourth soldier’s first motion was to bat the cane away from him with his left hand, but Robin brought it away with her right, causing him to waste a motion and give up his balance. 

She brought it around her back, switched it to her left hand mid-motion, and lashed it across his face. He was stunned, but he wasn’t out yet.

The fourth soldier, once he had collected himself, came in with a lunge kick that Robin dodged in the nick of time. She flipped the cane in her hand, and brought the curve of the grip down around his ankle, and pulled.

It didn’t cause him to fall over, but it did unman the fourth soldier, and he had to stop to make sure he didn’t do the splits.

And as he _sloooooooowly _attempted to come back to a standing position, Robin wound up, and sent an elbow into his left temple, dropping him like an elective class that she just wasn’t _feeling _at eight-thirty in the morning.

She wasn’t paying attention as she stood up straight. Because she walked right into a right from the fifth and final soldier that she hadn’t been aware of.

_THWACK!_

It caught her right in the side of the nose. She fell back, banging the back of her head off of the carpet.

And she had dropped the threaded cane.

Her first instinct was to roll onto her stomach, and bring her yellow cape down around her arms.

She got to her hands and knees, and as her vision cleared, she could see small crimson beads of her own blood falling to the carpet.

A high scraping sound from behind her told her that the fifth soldier had picked up the threaded cane.

Robin sent her hands down to the sides of her utility belt.

“I am gonna take this cane,” the fifth soldier said, “and beat you to death with it, you irritating piece of...”

Robin was up.

Her left hand held the grip of a slingshot. Her right was pulling the strips back, and in the pocket was a small adhesive projectile with an electric charge.

It also had an _R _on it.

Because branding.

_“...shit.”_

It was at point blank range. Robin knew that there was nothing this fifth soldier could do.

She winked behind her green tinted glasses…

...and let loose.

The projectile hit the fifth soldier right in the center of his forehead, sticking there. It knocked his head back, and he yelped in pain. The electric charge hit a moment later, causing him to go rigid and collapse.

Once the last soldier was down, Robin brought her left hand up to the bridge of her nose. It wasn’t broken, but it was tender.

She brought her fingers down to her nostrils and came away with some blood.

A bloody nose in a five-on-one fight with armed goons? That was a win.

She looked at the collection of rich hostages, and said “Barricade yourselves in the bathroom.”

As they wordlessly filed out, Robin remembered something that gave her pause.

These guys had their guns on the hostages, but as soon as Robin showed up… they holstered their guns.

They disarmed themselves.

Which Robin thought was… _weird._

* * *

**MACCLENDON AVENUE**

The ten soldiers had killed fifteen of the cops in front of the hotel before The Signal could even get up from the explosion. The remaining fifteen had ducked behind vans and cruisers.

But the soldiers were armed with AR-15s. The cops were armed with police issue thirty-eights. And those vehicles were not going to be cover for long.

The Signal stood up, shook the ringing out of his ears, and booked it toward the last soldier on the left.

In the middle of his run, the ground beneath them began to shake.

It happened for The Signal in slow motion. He saw the cracks start to form in the street, and they began to spread to the side where the soldiers stood and fired.

All but one of them had the sense to run out of the way.

It just so happened to be the one toward whom The Signal was running.

He wasn’t trying to fight him anymore.

The Signal was trying to save his life.

But he was too late.

The pavement gave way, and the soldier fell screaming into the dark sewer below. The Signal had to skid to a halt before he fell in himself.

Nine soldiers one one side of a dark hole in the street. The Signal on the other. The two parties only vaguely seemed aware of one another.

There came a sound from the darkened hole. Like someone removing a drumstick from the rest of the turkey at Thanksgiving, except played at a deafening volume.

Something black and heavy was thrown from the hole. It landed at the feet of the soldiers across from The Signal with a hollow thump.

It was the severed head of the soldier that had fallen into the hole. It had been neatly slice from the rest of his body.

A sound like a jet engine taking off came from the hole in the street, and a figure clad so in black that he seemed to be made from shadow emerged with flames emanating from his back before he landed on street level.

He was a colossus of black metal, the only dash of color being two silver tubes leading from an ovular helmet to a back-mounded jet pack.

Even from the back, The Signal knew who this was.

This was the man who made the oceans of the world into his own personal slaughterhouse.

This was the man who fought the original Superman to a standstill.

This was the man who almost ended the life of the original Supergirl with a kryptonite scaling knife.

This was the man who had come within mere seconds of murdering Nightwing and Catwoman in subway tunnels beneath the streets of Gotham City sixteen years ago.

He hadn’t been seen since he had escaped from prison over a decade and a half ago, but he was here now.

Black Manta had returned to Gotham City.

The situation had now instantly devolved from something that was terrible to something that absolutely defied human description. And The Signal had no idea what Black Manta was even _doing _there.

The nine soldiers stood before him him in pure mortal terror as the air before them turned red…

...and Black Manta used the energy vision from his suit’s helmet on them. Seven of those soldiers screamed as they died in one fell swoop, turned into flaming ash.

The two that were still alive had scarpered off to the side while one of the cops yelled “FALL BACK! FALL BACK! GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE NOW!”

One of the two remaining soldiers had picked up his AR-15 and opted to empty his clip into Black Manta.

And every last one of those bullets ricocheted off of his armor, without so much as scuffing it. The Signal actually had to go for cover behind one of the police cruisers.

He managed to peek out as Black Manta caught up with that soldier, and a long retractable blade emerged from his right wrist. And with one swift motion, Black Manta disemboweled the soldier, cleanly slicing the AR-15 he had been holding in half.

Blood streamed from the soldier’s mouth. His insides slowly slithered out of his belly. He was already dead, but Black Manta gripped his shoulder with the hand from which extended his blade, refusing to let him fall.

The Signal saw him cast a glance at the final soldier, holding his AR-15 out before him not as a weapon, but as a talisman against the forces of darkness.

He looked at the pile of the soldier’s steaming entrails at his feet, before looking back at the final soldier.

Black Manta _kicked _the pile of guts at the final soldier.

As though they were, say, a soccer ball.

The inborn urge toward self-defense apparently having left him, the final soldier dropped his AR-15 and held his hands up, as though to protect his face from stray viscera.

Black Manta was upon the final soldier in an instant, his left hand upon the soldier’s right shoulder, and his right hand fully enclosing the soldier’s right hand.

His voice came in a deep and forbidding electronic distortion from his black, ovular helmet.

“Where… is… your… BOSS?”

The final soldier could do nothing but whimper.

A loud cracking as the final soldier screamed.

Black Manta had only but to squeeze slightly to destroy the man’s hand. What was left of it looked, to The Signal, like a surgical glove half-filled with raspberry juice and lightly pulped graham crackers.

Black Manta’s hand moved up to the soldier’s elbow.

“Do not make me repeat myself,” Black Manta said.

“TOP FLOOR!” the final soldier screamed in a wet voice. “TOP FLOOR! OH, GOD!”

“Good man,” Black Manta said. “You get to go quicker.”

And with a savage jerk, Black Manta ripped the final soldier’s left arm right off.

Blood sprayed, and the man screamed.

What was left of that arm ended in a pearly and jagged bit of bone just below the shoulder. Black Manta seemed to regard it with curiosity, before he jammed the sharp end of the severed arm deep into the final soldier’s throat.

From this distance, from this angle, it looked to The Signal as though the final soldier had begun the process of vomiting up his own arm. Blood spewed from his throat and splashed onto the pavement…

...but he had stopped screaming.

The final soldier fell back, dead.

And The Signal just… couldn’t move.

This was too much, too soon. He had busted a set of bank robbers in a souped-up bus the night before. It was one hell of an incline to get from _that _to _this. _ An unstoppable sadist with an impenetrable suit of armor and creative ways of wholesale slaughter just took out a team of armed commandos, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

So terrified was The Signal that when Black Manta saw him and started to walk toward him, he _still _couldn’t move.

It was only when he was just a few feet away that The Signal got his yellow escrima sticks off of his back.

For what little good they’d do.

Black Manta stopped. He was mere inches away, and then…

...and then Black Manta raised his hands. As though in surrender.

He slowly extended his right hand and brushed some of the dust off of The Signal’s shoulder.

“Respect,” Black Manta said.

There were a lot of emotions swirling through the chest of The Signal at this moment. But most of them were just fleas on the massive hide of confusion.

“And also out of respect,” Black Manta said, “I won’t kill anyone else till I get to the top floor. I know how you Gotham kids roll. After that, though, all bets are off.”

Finally regaining some of himself, The Signal opted to say something.

“When you get to the top floor… I’ll stop you.”

Black Manta looked over his shoulder at the carnage he had just caused, before looking back at The Signal.

“You’re doing a bang-up job so far.”

The after-burners on Black Manta’s jetpack lit up, and off he flew, heading to the top of the Gotham Royal.

The Signal looked toward the entrance.

No doubt the elevators were shut off.

_Jesus, I have to take the stairs…_

* * *

**THE GOTHAM ROYAL HOTEL**

Bruce was helping Harper and a few of the more hale attendees of the fundraiser barricade the entrance with tables and chairs. A couple of the less squeamish of the guests pulled Jimmy DelMonte’s body into a corner.

Bruce had his radio in, and Selina’s voice came to his ear.

“Get Harper and everyone away from the door.”

Bruce didn't bother asking any questions.

"GET BACK!" he bellowed. "EVERYONE GET B--"

**BOOM!**

Bruce felt the shockwave in his very guts when the door (as well as the tables and chairs barricading them) were blasted into smithereens. He landed on his shoulder hard, ears ringing. There were blasts of static in his ear. Apparently the destruction of the door had shorted out his ear piece.

As his vision cleared, he rolled onto his right shoulder. A man in a white tuxedo jacket and a woman in a purple dress were struggling to their feet. Harper’s white dress was covered in dust, and her bare arms were scraped and lightly bleeding.

**Thoom… Thoom… Thoom.**

Heavy footsteps, accompanied by others that were so light in comparison that they only barely registered.

Bruce got to his knees, and looked up.

In the middle was someone in a suit of blue high-tech armor (if Bruce had to eyeball it, he’d have to say it was Rhetora). On their left were three of the soldiers that had been causing trouble for the last few minutes. On their right were three more, alongside a rather well-built man in a blue t-shirt. His wrists were bound behind his back, and judging from the mess on the front of burlap bag that was over his head, he had been beaten soundly.

Bruce tried to get to his feet…

...and the Soldier-in-Blue whipped a Glock out of their thigh holster and pointed it at him.

Bruce stopped.

The Soldier-in-Blue surveyed their surroundings before looking at Bruce again. They motioned with the Glock for Bruce to get to his feet, and he did so.

“You,” the Soldier-in-Blue said. “You’re Bruce Wayne, right?”

Bruce nodded.

“And… that’s _all _you are?”

Bruce felt his insides curdle. He stared at the Soldier-in-Blue, struggling with all he had to keep his face blank, and nodded.

Because, in both theory and in practice, it was true.

The Soldier-in-Blue pointed their gun at Harper, who had finally gotten to a sitting position. There was a nick on her right cheek that had issued a small tendril of blood.

“And you,” the Soldier-in-Blue said. “You’re Harper Row. You’re the Deputy Mayor of Gotham City, and… that’s _all _you are, right?”

Harper, her eyes glassy, just looked at the Soldier-in-Blue in confusion, before glancing at Bruce.

One of the soldiers shoved the bound man at the Soldier-in-Blue.

They ripped the burlap bag off of his head.

His nose was broken, and it seemed as though his face hadn’t been washed. His blood had been mingling with sweat for what must have been hours. There were three gashes around his right orbital bone and on his forehead that were painful to look at.

It was Dick Grayson. He had been beaten so badly that he looked like he didn’t even know where he was.

Bruce’s heart stopped beating for a moment, and then made up for lost time with a mighty thud that almost moved the entire half of his body forward.

“And this,” the Soldier-in-Blue said. “This is Dick Grayson. He’s your formal legal ward. And… that’s all he is, right?”

“Please,” Bruce said, feeling the beads of sweat form on his brow. “Just… Just let him go.”

The Soldier-in-Blue tilted their head. They were silent for a long time, until…

“He said _‘Please.’”_

They turned to the soldiers on their right. “Gentlemen, he said _‘Please.’”_

The soldier in the middle looked at Bruce. “Truly, your manners speak well Gotham City’s upper crust.”

The Soldier-in-Blue got a knife out of their utility belt, and cut Dick’s binds.

“Go,” the Soldier-in-Blue said.

Dick looked at them in confusion. It was obvious to Bruce, even from fifteen feet away, that Dick was concussed.

“He said _‘Please,’” _the Soldier-in-Blue said. “I’m not an animal. Go.”

Dick slowly hobbled toward him. Bruce walked toward Dick, hoping to catch him if he f--

**BANG!**

Even with his ears ringing, Bruce heard something crack behind him.

There was an ice sculpture of the masks of comedy and tragedy on a table behind him. A bullet had caught comedy right between the eyes.

Bruce traced the trajectory of the bullet, fear mounting with each passing centimeter, until…

He stopped breathing.

There was a bullet hole in the middle of Dick’s chest. Blood was spreading, darkening his tight blue t-shirt.

He dropped his head to look at his own blood listlessly, before he fell to his knees.

Dick Grayson was dead before he hit the ground.


	11. Bankruptcy

**Chapter 11: Bankruptcy**

**THE GOTHAM ROYAL HOTEL**

The scene before Bruce Wayne broke down into its component shapes and colors. But even this was not enough for him to retain his momentary sanity.

A scream arose in his throat. It gathered strength like a storm, arrived with the authority of a freight train, and it felt like it tore his throat open once it was out.

He crawled, mouth open, toward the dead body of Dick Grayson.

The Soldier-in-Blue leveled their gun right at his head.

“No,” they said.

He heard them. He just didn’t care. The only thing that stopped him from cradling his boy in his arms was that Harper, on the ground herself, reached across to stop him.

“Bruce,” Harper said. “Don’t.”

“You should listen to her,” the Soldier-in-Blue said. “When his blood reaches your knees, then, and only then, can you--”

**Thoom… Thoom… Thoom…**

Heavy metal footsteps sounded at the entrance. Nearly seven feet of black metal loomed in the destroyed doorway. Pitiless red eyes glowed from a black, ovular helmet, and surveyed the room with the same smugness as a feudal duke eyeing an unproductive village.

The sudden appearance of Black Manta lent what had just happened a new kind of surrealism, almost liberating in its lack of tether to anything remotely real.

_Black Manta can’t be here._

_He hasn’t been seen in fifteen years._

_If he can’t be here, then…_

_Then…_

Bruce’s eyes sauntered downward until they lightly grazed upon the dead body of the man who was once his sidekick, his partner, his son, before they shot back up to Black Manta in a last ditch effort to reject reality.

A small section of armor in Black Manta’s left shoulder slid back, and up came some kind of weapon with six barrels.

All six barrels fired simultaneously. 

And simultaneously, the brains of the six soldiers flanking the Soldier-in-Blue ejected out of the backs of their heads in chunky red torrents.

As they dropped to the floor, the Soldier-in-Blue’s chest heaved up and down in fury.

“You the one in charge of this shitshow?” Black Manta asked.

The Soldier-in-Blue was silent for a moment, and their distorted voice was awash in anger when they said “Yes, I am.”

A retractable blade extended from Black Manta’s left wrist.

“Then I’d like to register a complaint,” he said.

And that’s when they both charged.

Black Manta and the Soldier-in-Blue slammed into each other in the middle of the floor, the latter using both hands to stave off the blade coming from the left wrist of the former.

Bruce scampered for Dick Grayson’s corpse.

“Harper, help me get him back.”

Harper, to her credit, did not ask questions. She ventured into the pool of rapidly cooling blood, and helped Bruce drag Dick Grayson’s body over to the wall so that whatever savage violence that Black Manta and the Soldier-in-Blue wished to inflict on each other did not inadvertently render impossible the prospect of Dick’s open casket funeral.

And still, the Soldier-in-Blue held off the blade from Black Manta’s left hand.

But, in a display of ungodly force, the Soldier-in-Blue dropped their right hand to their side, holding Black Manta off with just the one hand.

“Tell me something,” the Soldier-in-Blue said. “Is that blade Atlantean steel?”

Black Manta said nothing. He merely tried to drive the blade into the Soldier-in-Blue… to almost laughably poor results.

At which point the Soldier-in-Blue brought their right hand back up, wrapped it around the blade…

...and cleanly snapped it in half.

_PING!_

They threw the useless blade to the side. It was still sharp enough to stick straight up from where it landed on the floor.

If there were a way for Black Manta could project a terrified expression of fear through black armor, Bruce reckoned that he seemed to have found it.

“Adorable,” the Soldier-in-Blue said. “Really, it is.”

The Soldier-in-Blue headbutted the helmet of Black Manta.

And Black Manta’s helmet came away with a dent right between its two large and glowing red eyes.

_I hope they kill each other, _Bruce thought. _ I hope they tumble past one another into Hell…_

* * *

So many of these black-clad, body-armored dipshits and so few smoke pellets.

Having completely cleared Floor Two, Black Bat moved down a floor. Floor One basically served as a closet for everyone’s coats and bags. None of the guests of the fundraiser were actually down here, no, it was just hotel staff acting as glorified coat check attendants.

Unlike the rich folks, however, the hotel staff knew to sit down, turtle up, and keep their eyes closed.

There had been seventeen soldiers on this floor.

Black Bat had torn through twelve of them.

Another smoke pellet to make her presence felt, and in she walked.

She started with her grapnel gun, firing it into the armor covering the first soldier’s left shoulder.

As soon as he was reeled, screaming, within striking distance, Black Bat reached out and yanked the mask off his head leaving him only to confusedly ask, with great surprise, “THE _FUCK?”_

She grabbed his left shoulder, reared back, and caught him with a clothesline right across the clavicle. His breath left him with a low and throaty **“UUUUUUUUUUU!”** before he collapsed in a heap.

Black Bat saw two soldiers standing by a check-in counter making moves, and thought this was the best time to pick up some speed.

She hit a dead sprint before her feet left the floor and she did a one...two... _three-step _wall-run, before leaping off and planting her left boot dead in the center of the second soldier’s face.

This knocked him into the third soldier, who went into the counter so hard that, body armor or no, he came back clutching his lower back and groaning.

The second soldier didn’t drop. All the better for Black Bat to take his head in both hands and ram the back of it into the third soldier’s face so hard that the lenses in his mask shattered. They both melted, together, to the floor.

The hustle of footsteps on carpet. The thermals in Black Bat’s mask told her that the last two unlucky fuckwits who dared invade her city to spread fear and prey upon the innocent had come, running, to get their asses beat.

They were rounding a corner.

Black Bat was there to meet them.

The one on the right, the fourth soldier, walked right into a one-punch knockout. That just left the fifth and final soldier.

Just by looking at his heat signature, Black Bat could tell that this one was the smartest of all of the men she’d fought tonight.

Because he had sense enough to be afraid.

She looked up at the quivering blot of red in her lenses and smiled behind her mask.

“You’re the last one,” Black Bat said, her whisper coming out of her mask amplified. It was high and grating. Like the sound of ice crackling in warm soda. “All the men on this floor fell to me. All of the ones upstairs as well.”

The final soldier started backing away from her. He almost tripped doing so.

“You’re going to be taking a nap in a few seconds,” Black Bat said. “When you wake up, you’ll either be in jail, or in the hospital. And when they ask you what happened, I want you to tell them that Hell opened up at your feet and swallowed you whole. I want you… to tell them… the truth.”

The final soldier, apparently sensing no other option, screamed, and charged with his head down, as though this were a brawl between third graders and _not _a battle between a superhero and an emissary of a mysterious and violent force.

Black Bat just stepped to the side, grabbed his head with both hands as he passed, and spiked his head into the floor, knocking him out cold.

But something wasn’t right.

There was someone behind her.

Black Bat whirled around, hoping the weights in her cape would send this person reeling.

But this person’s heat signature just ducked.

Just from his movement, Black Bat could tell who this person was.

“Signal?” she asked.

The Signal stood up straight. “Yeah. It’s me.”

“What’s the good word?”

“There _is _no good word,” The Signal said. “This entire situation is just… just _horrible..”_

* * *

**CLANG!**

Bruce didn’t believe it.

**CLANG!**

He didn’t think it was even possible.

**CLANG!**

Black Manta was fully within the confines of his suit.

**CLANG!**

And he was getting his ass kicked.

The Soldier-in-Blue had been batting him around the middle of the floor, and his offense had been token at best.

But finally, the large red eyes in his head had begun to glow red.

He was about to unleash his heat vision.

“Get back,” Bruce said to Harper. They began to drag Dick’s body further back into the corner with the rest of the terrified and silent attendees.

The air was laden with a high electronic whine. That of the heat centers in Black Manta’s lenses firing up.

Black Manta, his helmet pitted and dented with blows from the Soldier-in-Blue’s fists, rose to his feet, fixing his lethal gaze upon them.

The red eyes of that helmet grew brighter and brighter.

The whine grew higher and higher.

And the Soldier-in-Blue…

...just reached out with both fists and hit the eyes of the helmet so hard that they smashed and went dim.

A puff of smoke ejected from the separation in the armor between the helmet and the neck.

“FUCK!” Black Manta yelled from within his suit. Bruce had to figure that those lenses were the only way he could see out.

“Sixteen,” the Soldier-in-Blue said before they kicked Black Manta in the gut so hard that he fell in a rumbling heap to the floor.

“Sixteen of my men you killed,” the Soldier-in-Blue continued. “Sixteen Squires that I trained and trained with. Sixteen people who willingly walked into Hell with me. And thanks to you, I was unable to see them out.”

“I gotta remind you of what you took from _me?” _Black Manta asked, pain in his voice, as he tried to deal with his helmet.

The Soldier-in-Blue kicked Black Manta in the gut so hard that he flipped over. Bruce could feel the impact tremor in the floor. After which, they knelt, planting a knee in Manta’s back, stopping him from moving.

“Hyde,” the Soldier-in-Blue said, ripping the cables out from the back of Black Manta’s helmet, “everything you touch is worthless. All the people you meet, all the places you scurry to, the friends you make, the family who are cursed to share your blood. I didn’t take anything from you that you didn’t ask to be taken solely by existing. I didn’t kill anyone. You simply _knew _them, and they died on their own. My people just took out the trash.”

And with that, the Soldier-in-Blue yanked the helmet from Black Manta’s head.

What was beneath was a bald and handsome black man who didn’t appear to have aged in the sixteen years since Bruce saw him last, as the recipient of a one-punch knockout by The Atom. The three vertical scars running down his face had been given to him by the late Arthur Curry, who had once been known in Atlantis as its king, and known to those above the waves as Aquaman. The four horizontal scars had been given to him by Catwoman as a going away present sixteen years ago when he came within a single breath of killing her.

The Soldier-in-Blue grabbed the back of David Hyde’s head, and bent down even further to speak directly into his ear.

“How many graveyards have you filled, Hyde?” the Soldier-in-Blue asked. “How many Atlanteans did you slaughter to get to a guy who was just going to die in the Battle of Founders Island anyway? How many men, women, and children were just in your way, and the only method your evil mind could think to move them was with lethal force?

The Soldier-in-Blue pulled back a little bit more, and David groaned in pain.

“You’re the bad guy,” the Soldier-in-Blue said. “And this is a bad guy’s end.”

With that, the Soldier-in-Blue slammed David Hyde’s head into the floor.

Bruce swore he heard cartilage snap.

* * *

Robin ate a right, and fell to the floor. As soon as the back of her head hit the carpet, she could taste the blood in her mouth.

In the process of clearing out Floor Three, She’d gotten a bloody nose, a small gash on her left cheekbone, and a cut above her right eye that she’d had to stop and wipe every now and again so it didn’t seep into her eye.

She’d be a connect-the-dots puzzle of bruises in the morning. Everything hurt. And in between sessions of beating these guys into the ground, she’d have to stop and shake so the little beads of sweat that had been crawling down her spine beneath her armor for the past few minutes didn’t seep into her butt-crack.

But then again… she could be studying for her chemistry test next week. Anything apart from death, Carrie Kelley was going to consider a win.

_I gotta stop shitting myself, _Robin thought as she swallowed spit mixed with blood. _This is the most fun I’ve had in my life._

There were only three soldiers left on this floor.

Robin managed the rather awesome (to her anyway) trick of slamming the tip of the threaded cane on the floor as she kipped up. Now that it was in segments, she ran it across the carpet, taking out the legs of the soldier who punched her.

She drove her heel into his left temple, and she was now down to two.

The remaining two soldiers advanced on her as one.

Robin took a segment of the threaded cane in her hand, and wrapped the whole of it around the left bicep of the one on the right after he whiffed a punch.

She dropped to the floor, bending him over, and unleashed two quick and sturdy kicks in succession.

The first kick was to the shoulder of the arm around which the threaded cane was wrapped. This was no simple dislocation. She felt his bones shatter through the green pixie boot on her right foot.

And as he was screaming, her second kick, aimed right at his jaw, silenced him. In the moment, she had to guess it was from pain and shock. She hadn’t quite intended to knock him out, but hey, any port in a storm.

The problem here being, the poor bastard collapsed right on top of her.

As the wind was driven from her body, the last soldier just stood there in his fighting stance, not quite sure what to do.

Robin and the last soldier held eye contact for several seconds.

“Could, uh… Could you get out from under my friend, please?” he asked.

She honestly wanted to see where this went.

“No,” Robin said. “Fuck you. Come down here and get me.”

The final soldier looked at her for a second… and then finally grinned.

He walked about ten feet away, and then sized up both the distance, and his intended target.

“You do realize,” the last soldier said, “I was the kicker for my high school football team.”

Robin finally realized what was about to happen.

“Oh, _shit!”_

The last soldier started running.

Robin desperately bucked beneath the body of the unconscious soldier, trying to get free. He was on the hefty side in the first place, and the added weight of body armor did not help matters.

She wasn’t going to make it.

And just as he reared back with his right leg to kick in Robin’s head…

...someone Robin had never seen before, darted into the room behind him.

The last soldier stopped, the hazel eyes in his balaclava wide. He spread his arms out. He grunted in pain.

The unknown party had leapt into the room from the adjoining hallway so fast that Robin hadn’t gotten a good look at them until now.

It was a woman. The streaks of gray in the long brown ponytail hanging over her left shoulder put her, in Robin’s mind, in her fifties.

But that was the only thing that told Robin that this new mystery party was on the older side. Her face held but only a few crow’s feet about her green eyes. Other than that, her dark tan skin was flawless. The black leather pants that she wore hugged her athletic legs. Her shoulders were strong and firm beneath the black leather jacket and white blouse about her upper body.

It was only when Robin’s eyes fell upon the Chinese sword she was holding did the recent events become clear to her.

This Mystery Woman had swooped in and slashed the last soldier across the back before he had the opportunity to kick a field goal and do permanent damage.

The last soldier, in pain, turned around to face his assailant. Robin saw that the Mystery Woman’s sword-work was so accurate that her weapon had slashed between the plates of his body armor.

The Mystery Woman looked into the last soldier’s eyes. Robin could see that she had no pity in her.

She reared back, and plunged her sword into the last soldier’s throat. The blade came out on the other end, caked in blood.

The last soldier gurgled and shook, but did not fall.

The Mystery Woman yanked the sword out, and a geyser of blood came from beneath the last soldier’s chin. It lasted a moment before it came to a dribble, and the last shoulder finally heaved forward to the floor dead. The Mystery Woman stepped to the side as he fell. She was possessed of such grace and awareness that none of his blood had gotten on her.

This was the first time Robin had ever watched someone die.

As Robin struggled beneath the weight of the unconscious shoulder, the Mystery Woman walked over, and yanked him from off of her with one hand. She extended that hand to help Robin to her feet…

...while holding her sword beneath Robin’s chin with the other.

“No sudden moves,” the Mystery Woman said with an accent that Robin couldn’t place. “And do be so kind as to drop your toy.’

Robin let go of the threaded cane, and stood up straight.

“What would you like to do most in this world?” the Mystery Woman asked.

Robin only moved her eyes when she looked at the dead soldier and the bloody sword beneath her chin. She didn’t move her head at all. She was too scared to.

“A little thing called _‘Whatever the Fuck You Want,’” _Robin said.

The Mystery Woman smiled.

“Smart girl,” she said. “You will live a long life, should you survive the night.”

* * *

For the last few minutes, Selina had been staring at the holographic security camera feeds in numb, dumbstruck horror.

She had just watched Dick Grayson die.

Selina had gone to his wedding, even though Bruce hadn’t been invited. She met his wife Bea, and shook her hand.

She’d been by his side during their near-fatal fight with Black Manta in the old abandoned subway tunnels sixteen years ago when they went after The Undying.

By God, she even remembered the days that she had been Catwoman and he had been Robin. Looking back on those days she had always thought (but never spoke aloud) that they had _both _been just _adorable _little shits.

And now he was gone.

It would be up to her after this. She would be the one who had to sift through the emotional and psychic wreckage of Bruce Wayne when the night was done. He had lost his parents, and now he had lost his son.

The images on those holographic screens filtered through her eyes, before finally swelling lifeless in her brain. The gray cloudiness caused by Black Bat’s smoke pellets. The Signal running up the stairs. Robin dishing out six punches for every one she took.

She didn’t even have it in her to be surprised that Black Manta was back.

The only thing that cut through the gloom, the only thing snapped her back to the here and now… was the sound of the panic room door opening.

She swiveled around in her chair to see who was barging in, her shoulders hunched up, ready to throw down with the soldier making their entrance.

But that was just it.

No one was entering.

Aaliyah Ramsey was _leaving._

“Aaliyah!” Selina called, getting up out of her chair. _ “Aaliyah, what the fuck are you doing?”_

Without a word, Aaliyah left the panic room, and walked down the abandoned hallway. Selina stumbled getting out of the chair, but she followed her.

Aaliyah was thirty paces out of reach when one of the armed soldiers that had been terrorizing the Gotham Royal entered view from an adjacent hallway.

Selina felt herself going pale.

“AALIYAH, LOOK O--”

As soon as that soldier leveled his assault rifle at Aaliyah, the fifteen-year-old cheerleader batted the barrel out of the way.

Aaliyah’s right hand shot out, tagging the soldier in the throat. While he gasped, she landed a solid headbutt to the bridge of his nose.

She didn’t even give him time to fall to the floor. As he was making up his mind as to which part of his body to hold in agony first, Aaliyah grabbed his right arm and wrenched it down, forcing him to bend over.

From there, Aaliyah savagely kneed him in the side of the face. Just the one was all it took. The poor guy was done. And Aaliyah actually stepped over his unconscious body to continue her march.

Selina just stopped dead in her tracks. She couldn’t even breathe, lest it somehow spoil the thought that was forming in her brain with the strength and brightness of a Broadway marquee.

_Now just where in the hell did she learn _that?

Once she had acclimated herself to what she had just seen, Selina kicked off her high heels and ran after Aaliyah in her bare feet.

She heard her footsteps, her breathing, as she navigated a couple of hallways and doors until she had gotten to the main area where Bruce, where Harper, where Black Manta, and where the bastard who murdered Dick Grayson were. Rich people were huddled in the corners trying to disappear through sheer force of will as the Soldier-in-Blue was standing over a bloody and brutalized David Hyde.

Hyde’s face was leaky raw hamburger. Flecks of his blood and small chunks of his skin were on the Soldier-in-Blue’s gauntlet.

But the Soldier-in-Blue took one look at Aaliyah and just… stopped.

They stood up straight, hands at their side, and just stared at her.

Selina was standing behind Aaliyah. She couldn’t see her expression. And as long as she would live, she’d have given anything to see what manifested on Aaliyah’s face at that moment.

Aaliyah spoke in a watery voice on the verge of tears.

“Will begging work?” she asked. “Because… Because if begging works…”

With this, Aaliyah held up her hands, and got down on her knees. 

And Selina was powerless to do anything but watch.

“I don’t know who you are,” Aaliyah said. “I don’t know why you’re doing this. But please… please…”

This nightmare was beyond Selina’s ken. She didn’t even know how she could have equipped herself for what had happened already.

But things could always get worse.

Because Aaliyah Ramsey pointed to Black Manta and said:

_“Please _stop hurting my dad.”

Selina felt the food from the party staging a protest in her stomach, wanting to stampede out her mouth and onto the floor, with no mind for the vanity or the ego of the body from which it wished to expel itself.

And the Soldier-in-Blue said nothing. They just stood there, their breath coming out as static from their helmet’s electronic voice distortion.

“It seems,” the Soldier-in-Blue finally said, “that I have a choice between tempting fate and killing irony… In that case, I’ll take the former.”

They put their hands on their hips. “You live. _He _lives.”

The Soldier-in-Blue appraised the room with the glowing yellow eye-slits of their helmet. “You _all _live. For the moment. For now.”

But they looked yet again at Aaliyah.

“But you need to know something, little girl.”

Selina got herself ready. If the situation called for her getting between Aaliyah and that… that _thing, _then that’s just what she’d do.

“The only way,” the Soldier-in-Blue said, “that this drama of ours ends is with someone holding a gun to your head. And when that day comes… you are gonna _wish _it was me.”

They held their hand to the side of their helmet. “Clear out. We’re done for the night.”

And with that, the Soldier-in-Blue ran to the wall. The built-in jet propulsor in the armor gave them some momentum. They went through the wall, and into the chilly October night outside in a small hailstorm of concrete and plaster. Selina swore she could hear the high whine of a grapnel gun being deployed.

They all spent the next few moments in a shocked and horrified silence. Amidst the cool wind of autumn, and the eerie quietude of dead.

Selina was still static, still silent, when Aaliyah ran to her father’s side, tears in both her eyes and voice, saying “Stay with me, dad, _please, _don’t close your eyes, don’t go to sleep…”

Until, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Harper point to the entrance.

_“Robin!”_

Selina whirled around.

Robin walked in, a little worse for wear from the evening’s fighting, with her hands up in seeming surrender.

There was someone behind her.

A beautiful older woman in a leather jacket, leather pants, and a white blouse. 

She was using a Chinese sword to hold Robin hostage.

The same kind of Chinese sword with which this woman had attempted to kill Selina on an East End rooftop sixteen years before during the occupation of The Undying, thus making her instantly recognizable.

It was Talia al Ghul.

Selina managed to break from the dismay of the evening to wonder just what in the far-flung fuck _Tiffany _was doing here…

...when Aaliyah saw her.

“MOM!”

Upon hearing this, Talia immediately dropped the sword and pushed Robin out of the way, crying out _“Aaliyah!”_

Aaliyah got up, her dress wet with her father’s blood, and ran toward Talia.

They embraced tightly, Aaliyah loudly sobbing her eyes out into her mother’s black leather jacket.

Talia ran her hands down Aaliyah’s hair, trying to comfort her daughter, saying “It’s alright, child. It’s alright. Let us see to your father, shall we?”

Seeing this, taking it in, Selina felt a cavernous loss that she couldn’t quite articulate. And it only left her mind when she saw Black Bat and The Signal run in, only to stop immediately when they saw…

...Dick Grayson.

Bruce was still holding him. He had a glassy look in his eyes that told Selina full well that he hadn’t been paying attention to the last few minutes. Bruce was in the kind of grief that just… shut his power source off. He looked like he didn’t even have the energy to blink.

Selina immediately felt shame bubble into the bottom of her stomach like a spring of molten lead. Here she was, mourning the loss of an idea that hadn’t been the best one to begin with, and here was Bruce staring down the fact that he was going to have to bury the man who had been, in every sense save for the legal, his son.

She went over to him, knelt down, and placed her hand on his shoulder. She offered no words, knowing full well he would not accept them, or even hear them.

Selina was trapped with her grieving husband in a world that had begun its steadfast refusal to make sense.


	12. We Were Exploding Anyway

**Chapter 12: We Were Exploding Anyway**

It is often joked among those in the know that any congregation of crimefighters in Gotham City must be held upon a rooftop.

But tonight?

Tonight it happened in an alley.

The area around the Gotham Royal Hotel cannot be said to be either dingy or crime-ridden, but much like the scum that infects the adhesive between bathroom tiles, it is difficult to get all of the dirt out of a city.

Three blocks away from the Gotham Royal, as the sirens of police cruisers and ambulances sounded, as barricades were set up, as the media converged upon the scene of tragedy, Black Bat dropped into the alley between Nirama Street and Fifty-Sixth in what was, so long ago, the Jezebel Plaza Shopping District.

She breathed in the stench of human filth, and looked at the graffiti on both of the surrounding buildings. Among the usual gang tags, a few souls had tried their best to communicate.

_THE KNIGHTS ARE WORLD SERIES CHAMPS._

_UN JOUR JE SERAI DE RETOUR PRÈS DE TOI._

And perhaps most mysterious of all: _HiC DIDN’T HAPPEN AND YOU CAN’T PROVE IT DID._

One would-be artist decided to get would-be artful with a simple _“2B=?”_

It took her a second, but she got it. Even with the horror that had deluged her mind for the last hour, Black Bat felt an involuntary chuckle pass through her nostrils.

Roughly a minute later, The Signal joined her. Unlike Black Bat, he just walked into the alley like a normal person.

They did not greet each other. They just stared into the middle distance over each others’ shoulders for a few moments. Until The Signal asked:

“You have a report for me?”

Black Bat sighed.

“I called in the Batwing to get Talia and Manta out of there. It cloaked and dropped them off at…”

“At the old Thompkins Clinic?”

Black Bat nodded. “Selina’s going there after… after she and Dad get back to the mansion. Carrie got out of her Robin costume and back into her dress. She’s going with the story that she was accosted by one of the soldiers.”

She deliberately made herself hard to read. There was usually sympathy in The Signal when something went wrong. Indeed, Duke Thomas overflowed with genuine sympathy for those cursed with the affliction of life even when things went _right. _ But now there was stony resignation. Duke Thomas had always, weirdly, been a human blindspot for Cassandra Wayne. Like reading upside-down Sanskrit. Difficult, but not technically impossible. Never more so than the present moment.

“Anything on your end?” Black Bat asked.

“A black-and-wihte found Dick Grayson’s car in an alley on Founders Island a few blocks from the bridge.”

Black Bat opened her mouth to say something. The Signal seemed see this coming and cut her off.

“I’ll head there,” he said. “After I change into my other set of work clothes.”

“Thank you,” she said. 

“You’re welcome,” said The Signal.

After that, they shared some more silence.

“They had radios,” The Signal said. “They didn’t use them up to a certain point. I can see radio waves, and if they had just used them before they blew up that cafe across the street, then…”

“Don’t,” Black Bat said. “You’ll go crazy if you keep thinking like that. A homicide detective would know.”

“Fifteen cops are dead,” The Signal said. “I knew some of them. Someone has to answer for it.”

“And someone will.”

“Was this what it was like?” he asked. “Back in the old days? Back when The Joker and The Riddler were out doing their thing?”

“The Joker was before my time,” Black Bat said. “The Riddler wasn’t all that effective. Cluemaster was only ever really a terror on just the one night. That’s the part people forget. But Harmonia and Nemesis? The Penguin when he got cranky? Hush when he got a wild hair up his ass? Yeah. It was a lot like this.”

“I keep forgetting you fought in the Battle of Founders Island.”

“At the tail-end.”

The Signal nodded. “I didn’t live on Founders. My parents and I were out of town when The Undying held the city hostage. And… And the first night I ever got to second base with a girl was the night of Game Seven.”

Black Bat lost her battle to seem hard-to read. Her head lowered in surprise. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Her name was Izzy, we were at a party at this apartment on Bleake Island, and… and the party stopped when we felt the Earth shake, and saw on our phones that Wayne Stadium was gone.”

Black Bat knew that Duke’s daughter was named Izzy. She wondered if he named her after that long-lost teenage amour. She wondered if his wife knew. But she said none of this.

“You’ve never told me this before,” Black Bat said.

“How does one go about telling someone else that the first time they got their hand under a girl’s shirt was on the night of the worst supervillain attack in human history? I’m only telling you now because I really want to illustrate to you how far I’ve been from how bad this city can really get.”

He took a step forward and put his hands on his hips.

“Gotham City has a habit for horror,” The Signal said. “My luck in staying away from it only ran out tonight. Not when I was a teenager, not when I was unconnected from everything and everyone, but _tonight. _ Right now. When I have a wife and two kids.”

“If you don’t--”

“Naw,” The Signal said. “I’m in it. Till the lights go out. I just need you to understand the gravity.”

Black Bat was silent. The Signal folded his hands in front of him.

“I want you to tell me that what we’re doing is _right,” _he said. “And I want you to tell me in a way that when this is finally over, when we catch the people behind this, I can look back to right now and believe you.”

Black Bat couldn’t say anything.

* * *

**ARKHAM ASYLUM**

The Soldier-in-Blue stood in the depth of the empty swimming pool in the Asylum’s old recreation area. It had been sealed off during the establishment’s supervillainous hey-day, but it was open now.

The Squires stood at the edge of the empty pool above them.

“I must ask for forgiveness,” the Soldier-in-Blue said. “Seventeen of our brothers died tonight. Eight were taken into custody by Gotham City’s pathetic and feeble police department. It was in the cause of making our presence felt, and that we did. But as I never tire of explaining, none of you are expendable. Casualties, though they may at times be inevitable, are not to be taken lightly. I will never throw your lives away. Each life lost is a failure, and for that, I must ask you to forgive me.”

The Soldier-in-Blue looked down at the concrete of the pool beneath their feet, feeling the ugly pangs of their own pensiveness within the cocoon of the booming silence.

It went on for a spell… until one voice above the Soldier-in-Blue shouted out:

_“When do we get to destroy this fucking city?”_

That question was met with laughter, and that laughter slowly gave way to raucous and deafening cheering.

The Soldier-in-Blue let them (and themself) bask in that for a while, until they raised their arms, stilling the crowd.

“Soon!” the Soldier-in-Blue called out. “And thank you! GO HAVE SOME FUN!”

Another brief and loud blast of cheering, before the Squires had begun to file out.

The Soldier-in-Blue made their way to the ladder at the edge of the empty pool…

...when a light on their gauntlet started blinking.

The heads-up readout within their helmet said that the incoming transmission was coming from an “UNKNOWN FREQUENCY.”

No doubt the same Unknown Frequency from the night before. The one that told them how to get to Dick Grayson in the first place.

The distorted voice of what the Soldier-in-Blue had dubbed _“The Mystery Caller” _sounded within their helmet.

**“It’s on the news,” **the Mystery Caller said. **“You killed Dick Grayson.”**

“He lived his life thinking there was a good billionaire in the world,” the Soldier-in-Blue said. “Getting that kind of stupid out of the gene pool is a good deed in and of itself.”

There was a brief-yet-heavy silence before the Mystery Caller chuckled. **_ “Now_**** do you believe me?”**

The Soldier-in-Blue didn’t say anything.

**"Say it,” **the Mystery Caller said. “ **Say I’m for real.”**

“You’re for real.”

**“Thank you,”** said the Mystery Caller. ** “Now… Are you ready to hunt some ****_really_ ****big game?”**

* * *

**THE THOMAS WAYNE MEMORIAL CLINIC**

Forty-three years ago, Thomas and Martha Wayne were murdered in Crime Alley, which took up the edge of Park Row on the mainland.

Within walking distance, however, was a free clinic that mostly handed out contraception and treated drug addicts. It was run, at the time, by Doctor Leslie Thompkins. It was Doctor Thompkins who performed the cursory examination of the then eight-year-old Bruce Wayne for trauma on the night of his parents’ murder.

Bruce remained close to Leslie Thompkins well into his stint as Batman, she being one of the only ones who knew of his perilous and insane double life. The clinic was renamed _“The Thomas Wayne Memorial Clinic,” _and remained free to the downtrodden and unlucky. The place served as an all-purpose patch-up point for Batman, his network, and any other superhero who got hurt in Gotham. But then the inevitable happened.

Everyone just got old.

Seven years ago, Leslie Thompkins at long last retired, moving to Philadelphia to be with family, where she remains to this day. The clinic was then left in the capable hands of her one-time head nurse, Doctor Patty Jenkins.

On the day of her retirement, Batman presented her with a certificate declaring her an honorary member in good standing of the Justice League.

Tonight, Cullen Row dropped off Selina Wayne and Aaliyah Ramsey in front of the clinic and did a circuit around the block in the black Cadillac Escalade until he was needed again.

As soon as he left, Selina looked at the squat, ugly clinic, and sighed.

It fell to her to question Talia al Ghul tonight. She looked down at her purple dress, and saw that a new feature to the fabric was the random odd brown smear.

Dick Grayson’s dried blood.

She sighed, turned to Aaliyah, and tried to stifle her anger and resentment.

“When we get in there, take a seat. I need to talk to your mom.”

“Can _I _talk to my mom?” Aaliyah asked.

“When I’m done,” Selina said. “After that, it’s a free country.”

Selina and Aaliyah silently walked in.

The interior of the clinic, in a direct contradiction to the exterior, was spotless and exquisitely maintained. Selina figured it damn well should be. This clinic pulled in a small fortune from yearly Wayne Enterprises donations. That’s how it could still call itself a free clinic. The tile floor was shiny, and even the years-old plush waiting room chairs looked new.

“There,” Selina said, “You can see them when I’m done.” 

Aaliyah parked herself on one of the chairs, apparently sure of Selina’s animus toward her, even though she had gone to great pains to conceal it.

Selina walked into the interior of the clinic, and just as she was about to walk into the rear care ward, Doctor Jenkins walked out.

She was a squat woman in her forties, with generous brown eyes and hair done up in afro puffs.

“How is he?” Selina asked in a way that told anyone who was able to listen that she was not curious about David Hyde’s well-being in the slightest.

“Cracked skull and severe facial scarring,” Doctor Jenkins said. “He’s sedated now, and will be for the next day or two. The brain swelling isn’t as bad as it could be, but I’d like to be on the safe side. He’ll live, but he ain’t gonna be pretty.”

“Poor Talia,” Selina said in a flat voice.

“I don’t think she cares,” Doctor Jenkins said. “She’s not leaving his side.”

Selina found this oddly curious.

“Who did you say she was again?” Doctor Jenkins asked.

“Miss Universe 2005,” Selina said, joking so she didn’t scream. “She did so well in the swimsuit competition that no one remembers her shitty stand-up comedy routine in the talent portion.”

Doctor Jenkins scowled at her.

“All she had was a Tom Waits impression,” Selina said. “It was embarrassing.”

“Fine,” Doctor Jenkins said. “Don’t tell me. She’s all yours.”

“Thanks,” Selina said.

And in she walked.

David Hyde took up one of the two beds in the room. He was hooked up to an IV, burly and bare-chested with his entire head bandaged. Blood was already seeping through.

Talia was sitting by his bedside. She turned her head to Selina when she entered, but not her eyes.

“I thought Bruce would be questioning me,” Talia said.

Unwanted memories of the ride back to Wayne Manor played in Selina’s head. The man who was once Batman was stoop-shouldered and catatonic as Cullen drove them back and Aaliyah stared at him and Selina with this blank expression telling her that she knew she had stepped wrong, but she wasn’t quite sure _how._

Selina had walked Bruce up the stairs of Wayne Manor and into the master bedroom, telling him that she was going to come to the clinic and question Talia.

And Bruce had said nothing.

“Bruce Wayne,” Selina said, “is getting ready to bury the closest thing he had on this Earth to a son. Most likely behind some bullshit that you were responsible for. Do you really… _really… _want to talk to my husband right now?”

Talia sighed. “No. I suppose not.”

Silence.

“Victoria,” Selina said.

For the first time, Talia made eye contact with Selina. As though her name had been called. Because, in a way, it had been.

“That’s the name Aaliyah gave us,” Selina said. “Victoria and Evan Ramsey.”

Talia nodded.

“She gave us this bullshit story about her dad being in construction and her mom being a bartender. What were you really doing?”

“She spoke the truth,” Talia said. “David really was a construction worker...”

“And you’re a bartender?” Selina asked, unable to keep the incredulity out of her voice. “The Daughter of the Demon serving beers in…”

“In Parisot, North Carolina,” Talia said. “It was a crass place filled with fools and cretins, but we managed to make a home there.”

Selina put her hands on her hips. “Any regrets?”

“About what?”

“You know damn well what,” Selina said. “How do you look back on all those years you chased Bruce?”

Talia closed her eyes and glowered. “I spent my life feeling inadequate in the face of my father’s plans for not being born a boy, but Bruce Wayne gave both his name and his most cherished title to a girl who is not of his own blood, nor even entirely of his own race. If anything, I chose correctly in pursuing him.”

Selina blinked, not quite knowing what to feel about that.

“But,” Talia said, reaching out and touching David Hyde’s forearm, “choosing correctly is not the same as choosing wisely. Bruce judged me. David… my Beloved… does not. He loves me for who I am. It pains and infuriates me to see what they’ve done to him.”

“I take it you two started making eyes at each other during the whole Undying thing.”

“We did,” Talia said. “The day I left Gotham City, the day after our fight when you gave me those scars…”

_Oh yeah, _Selina thought. _ I scratched her face but good. She must have gone under the knife to get that fixed._

“...he told me,” Talia said, “that he wanted to see me again. I, in my wounded pride, told him that if the Daughter of the Demon does not wish to be found, then she would not be found. Do you know what he said to me?”

“What?” Selina asked.

“He said that finding rare and wonderful things in a shitty world was his job,” Talia said. “He went to prison and broke out months later. Mere days after that, he found me in Bruges. He said _‘I _told _you that you were rare and wonderful, and now I found you.’”_

Talia smiled. Selina would have thought it was adorable, were David Hyde and Talia al Ghul not deeply shitty and wholly irredeemable people.

“We spent months in our version of a courtship, playing a lustful and energetic game of tag across the globe itself. One night in Palermo, we found a man who liked to grope women on buses. My Beloved and I spent the whole evening talking about our dreams and our fears as we flayed that man in such a way that the whole of his skin came off in just one piece.”

Selina hated herself for liking that.

Talia’s eyes grew downcast, and she turned to look at her sedated husband.

“The day I found that I was with child,” Talia said, “was the day after the Battle of Founders Island. I emerged from vomiting in a hotel bathroom in Nice to find my Beloved sitting on the edge of the bed, tears in his eyes, watching the news reports that Aquaman, his nemesis, was dead. Dead at the hands of some misbegotten rock monster and not _his _hand.”

Talia closed her eyes, and gently caressed David Hyde’s left bicep.

“He devoted his life to killing Arthur Curry,” Talia said. “Only to have it taken away from him by an angry Greek Goddess. It was then, when he had lost everything, that I told David that he had _gained _everything.”

“That’s it?” Selina asked. “Aquaman dies, and he has nothing left to live for?”

Talia looked at her with derision. “Don’t be maudlin. David had nothing left to _die _for. There is a marked difference.”

Selina nodded. Talia looked back at David.

“We went off the grid. We secured new identities for ourselves. We went to a place no one would look to start a new life. A new family.”

“Parisot, North Carolina,” Selina said.

“The very same. That is where Aaliyah Ramsey was born to her father Evan and her mother Victoria. And until today, she had no idea of the former lives of her parents.”

“Aaliyah’s a nice girl,” Selina said. “I have no idea where she gets it from.”

“Nor do I.”

“To think how many lives could have been saved if you just got knocked up earlier.”

Talia again looked at Selina. This time with a very close approximation of hatred in her eyes.

“I will not weather your insults,” Talia said. “My Beloved and I have not _reformed. _ We simply _stopped. _ I have vivid fantasies of Aaliyah coming home with tears in her eyes and hatred in her heart because someone had done her a grievous wrong. And when the three of us, as a family, address that wrong with blood and steel, only then shall she see who her mother and father _truly _are.”

“You didn’t go back to Ra’s,” Selina said. “Why?”

“Is it so hard to guess?” Talia asked. “Aaliyah is a girl, which means that apart from the lowly duties of training and assassination, she is worthless to him. I will not subject my daughter to how I was raised.”

Selina nodded. It wasn’t that hard to guess after all.

“But he found you, didn’t he?” Selina asked. “Ra’s found you, destroyed all of Parisot with you in it, and came to Gotham to chase after Aaliyah after she bailed. At least that’s my read on it.”

“I disagree,” Talia said. “Armed commando squads are not the style of The Demon. He prefers to act with subtlety. Destroying an entire town and taking rich people hostage in Gotham City is anything but subtle. But whoever did this shall die by my hand.”

“For David?”

“For David,” Talia said. “For Aaliyah. For Parisot.”

“Parisot?” Selina asked. “The town you said was full of fools and cretins?”

“They were _my _fools and cretins,” Talia said. “I can think of them however I wish, but _no one _touches my possessions except me.”

“Hate to break it to you,” Selina said, “but you’re not killing anyone.”

“You will not give me orders,” Talia said.

“Not giving you orders,” Selina said. “Just stating facts. You know who the Head Bat in Charge is these days?”

Talia closed her eyes and sighed. “Cassandra Wayne.”

“That’s the one,” Selina said. “You know what she’s capable of?”

“I do.”

“You want to take her in a fight?”

“I do not.”

“Then there you go,” Selina said. “No murder on penalty of ass-kicking. I’ll take care of Aaliyah at Wayne Manor while this whole mess gets sorted out. You stay here.”

“You mean to separate me from my daughter?” Talia asked.

“I mean to protect your daughter,” Selina said, “while not having you two assholes in my house.”

_“Your _house?”

“Your daughter gets to eat out of my fridge and you don’t,” Selina said. “I’m The Lady of Wayne Manor, and I get to make the rules.”

Talia fumed. “Very well.”

“I’ll have her driven down here if she wants to talk to you after tonight,” Selina said. “I’m not a complete tool.”

With that, having nothing further to say to her, Selina turned and tried to walk out the way she came in.

“Selina?”

She stopped and looked at Talia again.

“Tell Bruce… that I am sorry for what happened to Dick Grayson. I know how much he meant to him.”

No rational thought filled Selina Wayne. Just a silent screaming. But she nodded, and walked out.

As soon as she entered the waiting room, Aaliyah Ramsey rose to meet her.

“You can go in and talk to them,” Selina said.

Aaliyah looked nervous.

“My parents are alive,” Aaliyah said. “Yay… But they’re supervillains… Not yay.”

Selina sighed.

“Look,” Aaliyah said. “I just wanted to thank y--”

Selina raised her hand, and Aaliyah fell silent.

Only now, when it was all gone, could Selina look at Aaliyah and finally admit her intentions since she heard her story.

Even after all these years, Selina Wayne tragically, pathetically, was looking for someone to fill Stephanie Brown’s shoes.

Stephanie’s exodus from Gotham City fourteen years earlier had hit everyone in different ways. Cassandra had come by the manor every day for almost a year, lugging that big book of Shakespeare around, hoping that her best friend would come back. But Selina imagined that it was she herself that took it the hardest than, for no other reason, that she was so stoic about it. She didn’t signal any outward signs to anyone that she missed Stephanie terribly because she just wasn’t built to sob and scream, even though she felt like doing it and knew that, in the long run, it would be healthier to do so.

All of her life, Selina had felt the need to know that she existed somehow. That because she was on this Earth, something had changed. She got her wish with Bruce. Sixteen years in therapy, improving every day because he loved her so much. He hated himself less and less.

And having that taste, Selina wanted more. She had joked the night of the Battle of Founders Island, when Stephanie fought the multidimensional terror known as Damian Wayne, that _“my daughter kicked Bruce’s son’s ass.”_

After Stephanie left, never to return, did she realize how serious that statement ultimately wound up being. Both in the moment and now, all these years later.

She saw a selfish and ill-advised chance to start over with Aaliyah. If Bruce could take in strays and orphans, why couldn’t she? Why couldn’t she impart her knowledge to some up-and-coming kid and let them loose in Gotham City to raise Hell and have fun? 

Oh yeah, and to fight crime and protect the innocent or whatever. Can’t forget that part.

And.. it was gone now.

Not only that, but Dick was dead, her husband was grieving past the point of sanity, the network was in disarray, supervillains were attacking the city for the first time in fourteen years, and she knew that everyone was going to look to her to put on a brave face and keep everyone still spinning.

She was the Lady of Wayne Manor after all. The Grand High Matriarch of a cobbled-together family full of fuck-offs and misfits in gaudy costumes.

But something had to give. Some small bit of protest and dissatisfaction had to leak before she got back to the good and noble work of being the decent person that Bruce had pulled his back out to convince her that she had been all along.

Some _petty _had to come out.

It had to come out with Aaliyah.

And it had to come out _right now._

She put her hands on Aaliyah’s shoulders. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

The confusion showed in Aaliyah’s pretty brown eyes. “O… kay?”

Selina took a deep breath.

“One time,” Selina said, “about sixteen years ago… I kicked your mom in the cooter.”

The confusion on Aaliyah’s face only intensified.

“And a day later,” Selina continued, “I kicked your dad in the nuts. With the same pair of boots. God only knows why I didn’t have them bronzed.”

Aaliyah tilted her head. “Do, uh… Do you feel better now that you told me that?”

Selina held her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart.

_A li’l bit…_

* * *

**THE GOTHAM HILTON**

On the top floor of the Gotham City Hilton, providing a lovely oceanside view from the banks of Founders Island, Stephanie Brown sat on the couch in a hotel bathrobe within one of the deluxe suites.

Stephanie had emerged from the shower minutes before. Her hair was still wet. And she still hadn’t gotten dye to get rid of those blonde roots of hers.

She was talking on the phone.

“I don’t know what the hell kind of freaky ESP you had getting me and Zander out of that hotel,” Jerry Timo said over the phone, “but some dudes in black came in and shot the shit out of the place. The only reason we’re alive might be because of you.”

“Does that get my fee up to seven million?” Stephanie asked.

“Fuck you.”

Stephanie had no choice but to smile at that.

“You know what went down there tonight?” Jerry asked. “‘Cause it’s all over the news.”

Stephanie looked over at the holographic TV that she had on mute in order to hold this conversation.

So it was.

There was a chyron down at the bottom of the screen that said _“TERROR AT THE GOTHAM ROYAL.”_

“I haven’t been paying attention,” Stephanie said. “I just… had a… a hunch, y’know?”

Which was bullshit. She got them out of there because it was a nest of superheroes, both retired and active.

Cass was there.

And if she was there, then Bruce, Selina, hell, even Tim and Harper might have been there too. But most importantly:

Cass was there.

Stephanie swallowed. As the saying went, she may have been through with the past, but the past was not through with her. Her beautiful, mysterious, mute ninja past was up there giving speeches about… whatever the fuck.

“So what about the next meet?” Stephanie asked. “Zander’s gotta get his game-winner, right?”

“Right,” Jerry said. “Me and Zander are going over that now. We’ll give you a call tomorrow.”

“Sounds good.”

“Get some sleep, Nat.”

“I will if you let me.”

“Later.”

Jerry hung up.

Stephanie swung her legs off the couch, took the TV off mute, cranked up the volume, and walked to the bathroom. She was going to brush her teeth, and she wanted to hear the news while she did so.

_“Thirty-four bodies,” _said WNTJ evening anchor Brianna Laughlin, _“were taken from the Gotham Royal tonight, and apart from the GCPD officers caught in the crossfire, only two have been identified.”_

Stephanie began to pour some of the green hotel mouthwash into the cap from the bottle.

_“One of the bodies,” _Brianna Laughlin said, _“was that of thirty-year-old James DelMonte, inventor of the Pallas genealogy app.”_

“Here’s to you, Jimmy,” Stephanie said as she knocked back the mouthwash and started swirling it about her mouth.

_“The other identified body from tonight’s massacre was that of thirty-eight-year-old Richard Grayson, a gymnastics teacher at Saint Afra’s Academy in Bludhaven, as well as the former legal ward to billionaire recluse Bruce Wayne.”_

In a moment of pure shock, Stephanie swallowed her mouthwash.

She ran out and looked at the TV.

There was Dick’s picture on the screen. He looked older than the last time she had seen him. No doubt it was taken from the most recent St. Afra’s yearbook.

A pit opened with Stephanie. It seemed to inhale anything that was near.

Stephanie liked Dick back in the day. She’d never been particularly close to him, but still.

Millions of Gothamites were watching this report right now, completely unaware that the dead man on screen right now was the OG Robin. He was Nightwing. He was the guy that kept you safe.

Stephanie sat down on the couch.

So great was her shock that she just couldn’t hear the rest of the news report.

This… This couldn’t be _real, _could it? Dick was only thirty-eight. For all she knew, he was still Nightwing. Who the fuck got the drop on _Nightwing?_

It was like a great Gotham City landmark had been torn down. The first Robin dying was tantamount to the implosion of the Princess Miagani statue, or the scheduled demolition of Amusement Mile.

But she was aware enough of herself to know that she was fixating on the broader cultural impact of the death of Dick Grayson in order to avoid the _personal _impact. Again, she wasn’t particularly close to him, but she had nothing but respect for him. He put his life on the line every night for thirty years without the expectation of a thank you.

Which of course, meant that, at least for Stephanie, a thank you was all that mattered.

And there was only one way to do that.

“Fuck,” Stephanie said.

She was struck with the sudden urge to chuck the remote through the TV. She picked it up, reared back…

...and remembered at the last minute that it was a holographic television. There was no screen. It would have just sailed right through the image and messed up the wall.

And that just seemed _too _dramatic.

So she sat the remote back down next to her leg, and repeated herself.

_“Fuck…”_

* * *

**THE RH KANE BUILDING**

Cassandra stood under the shower in the rear of Batcave North. Just letting the water fall on her as she stared off into space.

It had fallen to her to call Dick’s wife Bea and give her the bad news.

And once she had done so she had been met with a long bout of silence, followed by a wet sigh and the click of a disconnecting phone.

She had needed a shower after that.

As she tilted her head up and closed her eyes as the water cascaded over her face, she reflected on some acting advice that she’d been given early on in her career by Kevin Ulrich, the actor who had played King Lear in the production in which she herself had played Goneril _._

_“About an hour before the first show, imagine yourself physically picking up all of the things you’re thinking about, putting them into little boxes, and then walking away. That method shit is for the birds. You don’t serve the character. You serve the _situation. _ You can’t react when you’re tripping over the notes you took or the other crap you’re thinking about that you brought on stage with you. Once you lock all that stuff away, then you can do the job with purity.”_

Cassandra felt that she’d be needing to do that for the foreseeable future. Until things died down. In order for things to land the best way they could, in order to proceed she’d have to do the job with purity. She needed to plan, of course, but she need even more to react naturally.

This whole… _thing… _depended on it.

Judging form her messages, there was going to be an informal get-together at Wayne Manor tomorrow afternoon. The ideal situation would be for only Dick's closest friends to show up. The problem with that being, Dick Grayson had a_ lot_ of close friends. Cassandra tried to predict what the Wayne Manor get-together would look like, and imagined the world's saddest zoo.

Once she was done showering, she put on a pair of sweatpants and a plain white t-shirt, and took the elevator up to her floor in her bare feet.

She got to her apartment door, opened it, and stood in the darkness.

Cassandra was about to call for the Alfred VI to turn on the lights, but…

But…

_Someone’s in here._

Cassandra felt it in her bones. She was not alone in this apartment.

She looked into the dark void, and called out “Who are you?”

_Click._

The lamp near the kitchen table turned on.

Sitting at the head of that table was a man who appeared to be in his late forties. He was handsome and angular. He had gray sideburns that spread into the black hair at his temples. He had a neatly trimmed goatee. He was wearing a black suit with no tie. There was a green cloak hanging off of the chair in which he sat.

But his most curious feature was his eyes. They were green and sunken into his skull like scalding emeralds burning their way down to the bottom of a pile of bread dough.

Cassandra knew who he was. She’d studied his files. Every terrible thing he’d done in Gotham. Everything he’d done across the world for years, decades, _centuries _before that. She knew she’d have to tangle with him sooner or later, in some capacity. But still, she allowed herself to be surprised.

“Forgive my intrusion,” the man said in an obscure accent. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Ra’s al Ghul. And I would very much like to speak to you about your future.”


	13. Reading the Light

**Chapter 13: Reading the Light**

**ZIGGY’S CAR WASH**

It began to sprinkle rain onto Gotham City.

Detective Duke Thomas welcomed it. It had been chilly and overcast the past couple of days, and he far preferred the rain than the bout of indecision that Gotham’s skies had been going through. He hoped for a downpour. But for a time, the light sprinkles would have to do.

In the alley behind the self-serve car wash, two uniformed GCPD officers had set up a tape cordon on both sides, sealing the alley itself off from pedestrians and traffic. In the middle of the alley was a late model blue Honda Civic that looked as though it had been crushed by a giant sledgehammer.

The rear portion of the vehicle, virtually untouched by the horror that had plagued the front, was clean.

Which led Duke to believe that Dick Grayson had actually used the services that Ziggy’s Car Wash provided, before he had been set upon by the Soldier-in-Blue.

As he walked up to the two uniformed officers, he reflected that the great and legendary Nightwing, at the time of his death, had driven a frigging _Honda Civic _of all things. Yeah, one of the newer electric models, but still. Being a gymnastics instructor at a private school in Bludhaven must not have paid much.

This wasn’t the first time that Duke had been forcibly acquainted with the fact that the world’s legends walked among us, bearing our same problems and inconveniences, but it certainly was the most staggering in recent memory.

He finally made it to the uniformed officers. The one on the right was a woman named Pratt, and the one on the left was a man named Morley.

“Officer Pratt, Officer Morley,” Duke said. “I certainly hope you’re having a good evening.”

“We know you?” Officer Pratt asked.

Duke held up one hand, and fished his badge and ID out of his trench coat with the other. He flashed it.

“Oh, shit,” Officer Morley said. “It’s _Supercop.”_

Duke grimaced as he put his badge back in his coat. The fact that he had metahuman powers that no one else knew about turned that nickname of his into a miniature heart attack whenever one of his fellow officers used it. Like he let the fact that he was The Signal slip somehow.

“What brings Supercop to the lovely confines of Founders Island?” Officer Morley asked.

“That wrecked car behind you,” Duke said.

“What about it?” Officer Morley asked.

“You hear about that thing that went down at the Gotham Royal tonight?”

“Sure as shit did,” said Officer Pratt. “Supervillainy is back in Gotham City, and decided to kill fifteen cops as its opening act. I find the guy behind all this, he’s fucked.”

Duke furrowed his brow. He saw first-hand what the soldiers did, and what Black Manta did to those soldiers in return. Some cops were good, some were champing at the bit to go cowboy, even against their better judgment and their own well-being.

“You hear what they found over on top of the Oakey Paper Building on the mainland?” Officer Morley asked.

“Yeah,” Officer Pratt said. “You hear about that?”

“What?” asked Duke. “We find something?”

“A fucking _missilie instillation,” _said Officer Pratt.

That caught Duke off-guard. It had to have been the kind of missile that took down Mother Panic last night.

“Really?” Duke asked.

“Yeah,” Officer Pratt said. “It was abandoned. No one was using it. I’m not a, uh… a missile expert or anything, but from what I hear no one could use them. Needs a code or something. But still, it’s weird that someone put a fucking _missile instillation _on top of an old paper building.”

“It gets weirder,” Officer Morley said. “I’ve heard they found four more during the day.”

Officer Pratt looked at him with some degree of reproach. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“You didn’t ask.”

Duke decided to file this away for later.

“Anyway” Duke said, “that car behind you? It belonged to that Dick Grayson guy.”

“Ohhhhh,” Officer Morley said. “So this car…”

“Is a clue in a homicide case,” Duke finished. “It’s why I’m here.”

“What you _should _do,” Officer Pratt said, “is find the guy who killed all those _cops. _ Instead of chasing after dead teachers.”

Duke blinked at her in confusion. “But… they’re the same guy.”

Officer Pratt looked embarrassed, to which Officer Morley started laughing.

“Man,” Officer Pratt said, _“fuck _you.”

Officer Pratt stepped to the side and held her hand out toward the crime scene tape, as though she were the concierge at a hotel beckoning him to the dining area.

“It’s all yours, Supercop.”

“Thanks,” Duke said as he ducked under the tape. He made his way toward the wrecked car.

As he walked, he reached into the interior pocket of his trench coat, and pulled out a pair of ear plugs.

As The Signal, Duke’s powers enabled him to _“read light.” _ He could use the light in an area to see a few seconds into the future, but not only that, but he could read the light that had been in an area to see the past. The latter being more useful, as it could be used to see hours into the past as opposed to seconds.

He could also see radio waves, but everyone seemed to forget that part.

However, in the presence of Nth Metal...which just so happened to be at the cores of the ear plugs that he was putting into his ears at present… he could also pick up audio.

_Damn useful toys you can pick up if you sign with the Justice League, _Duke thought.

Ear plugs firmly installed, Duke stared at the wrecked Honda Civic and just… relaxed… as though he were in a hot tub.

The alley seemed to brighten. Not as though lit by street light, but more like the sun had forgotten to set in this lost and forsaken sliver of the world.

The rain hazed the images a bit, but Duke could clearly see that Soldier-in-Blue from the Gotham Royal drop from the sky and destroy the front of the Honda Civic.

Just as it had happened hours earlier.

And with these nifty ear plugs, Duke knew that it had been _loud…_

* * *

**THE RH KANE BUILDING**

“I know this is your home,” Ra’s al Ghul said, “but please sit. Let us converse like the cultured and civilized people that we are.”

Cassandra furrowed her brow at the immortal, genocidal madman that had broken into her home. But her bare feet padded along the carpet all the same. She pulled out the chair at the other side of the kitchen table, and sat down.

“You,” Ra’s said, “are The Detective’s great protege. The adopted daughter. The one who takes Bruce Wayne’s mantle into the future.”

“That I am,” Cassandra said.

“And yet,” Ra’s said, “you were brought into this world for the sole purpose of protecting myself and my interests. _‘The-One-Who-Is-All,’ _I believe you were called. I cannot help but feel as though I have received a poor return of investment. Both for my plans, and for the efforts of your father, David Cain.”

“I was slated for the League of Assassins,” Cassandra said. “That much is true.”

“Raised to be a great warrior.”

“A killing machine.”

“Able to read the movements of your enemies before they even know they have made them,” Ra’s said. “And by all accounts, the stories are true. Prisons are filled with the broken men and women who fell afoul of Orphan, of Batgirl, of Black Bat. In fact, your mother and father are included among their number. ”

That wasn’t _technically _true. Nevertheless, Cassandra thought she should steer them both away from where that area of the conversation might lead.

“If you know all this,” Cassandra said, “then you know I can destroy you in as much time as it takes you to sneeze.”

“Ah,” Ra’s said. “I have also heard tell that your prowess is so great that you are able to dodge bullets after they have left the chamber.”

“You heard right.”

“Splendid,” Ra’s said. “However… I must wager that you would need to see the person holding the gun in order for you to successfully accomplish such a feat. And, well…”

Ra’s al Ghul was looking at her chest.

Cassandra didn’t sense a particularly pervy vibe coming from him, which made the act all the more curious.

She looked down at herself.

Cassandra didn’t even have time to joke to herself that there wasn’t a whole lot there for him to look at… when she saw the glowing red dot dancing slightly above her heart.

She looked out of the living room window. No doubt a sniper with a laser scope was perched atop one of the buildings across the street.

“Should any harm befall me,” Ra’s said, “an even more grievous harm shall befall _you.”_

_Well, it serves me right putting off buying new blinds for so long, _Cassandra thought.

She looked at him. “Cultured and civilized, huh?”

“As well as cautious,” Ra’s said.

Cassandra sighed.

“Before we progress the conversation further,” Ra’s said, “I must give my condolences on the death of Mister Grayson. As both Robin and Nightwing, he was a thorn in my side for many years. But for one to last as long as he did against the full weight and force of The Demon, such will and success in _enacting_ that will demands no small measure of respect.”

Cassandra sat back, and went through her memories.

_“‘If they ever failed in an enterprise,’” _Cassandra said, _“‘they made up their minds that at any rate the city could not find their courage lacking to her, and they gave to her the best contribution they could.’”_

Ra’s tilted his head. “Shakespeare?”

“Pericles,” said Cassandra.

“Ah,” said Ra’s. “Unlike William Shakespeare, I have never shaken the hand of Pericles of Athens.”

Cassandra checked his body language.

He wasn’t lying.

_Jesus…_

“It’s a hell of a thing,” Cassandra said, “offering condolences for a man that you had murdered.”

Ra’s smiled.

“Would you believe me if I said that I myself did not order the death of Dick Grayson?”

She didn’t check his body language. 

She didn’t have to.

“It seems I have no choice,” Cassandra said.

“I have… a protege,” Ra’s said. “I’m afraid that she is a great deal less subtle than I am.”

Cassandra raised her eyebrows.

_She?_

* * *

**ZIGGY’S CAR WASH**

Within this small bubble of the past, slightly distorted by a light evening rain in the present, Duke Thomas watched a dead man try to get out of his own car.

The trauma to the front of the vehicle was so great that it had compacted the driver’s side door in on itself. Dick Grayson drove his shoulder into the door once… twice… and then gave up and crawled into the back.

The Soldier-in-Blue, for their part, got off the hood of the car and sauntered to the back half of the vehicle.

A few seconds later, Dick Grayson emerged from the rear-driver’s side door. He had a pair of escrima sticks that he had apparently stowed in the back, and was now brandishing them.

“Nice outfit,” Dick said. “Who are you?”

“Someone who doesn’t think you’re the least bit funny,” the Soldier-in-Blue said. “Put up or shut up, Nightwing.”

That seemed to throw him. Duke figured that attempts on the life of Dick Grayson, both in costume and out, must have been a common occurrence. But someone knowing that Dick was Nightwing was an altogether new and wholly jarring concept.

Dick slapped the escrima sticks together. They came alive with electricity.

“Let’s dance.”

And then he charged.

Dick Grayson acted with a grace and speed that Duke didn’t think he himself had on his best day. The man fighting for his life was a thirty year veteran of the superhero game. You didn’t get a career like that without being an alien or an Amazon. He had been, at the time of his death, the longest tenured and longest serving unpowered human superhero on the Justice League. He was the OG teen sidekick.

He struck like lightning, pulling off mad swipes and insane thrusts, peppering them with strong kicks and clever feints.

The problem here being that the Soldier-in-Blue was dodging everything Grayson had.

Duke wondered whether or not it was the armor of the Soldier-in-Blue that allowed for such alacrity, or if they really were that damn fast.

Dick brought the stick in his right back in a spinning back-swipe, only for the Soldier-in-Blue to duck it entirely.

But he used the momentum to bring the stick in his left hand in for a thrust… right into where the pauldron of the Soldier-in-Blue’s armor connected with the cuirass.

It was the Soldier-in-Blue’s back that was of interest to Duke at the moment. It seemed to want to sway out of the way of the thrust… but didn’t at the last moment.

_They wanted to get hit, _Duke thought. _They’re showing off._

Because the escrima stick jammed into where the metal connected on the Soldier-in-Blue’s armor, bringing it alive with electricity.

And nothing happened.

The wide-eyed look of shock that formed on the face of Dick Grayson now that fifty-thousand volts of electricity was having about as much effect on this… this _thing _as a third-grader’s water pistol hurt Duke to see.

The Soldier-in-Blue tilted their helmet. 

“I can tell you’re upset,” they said.

Before they reared back and punched Dick in the side of the face.

It almost seemed to happen in slow-motion. Duke could see Grayson’s flesh ripple as a small torrent of blood flowed from his mouth. He staggered and connected with the brick wall of the car wash behind him, getting a thin coating of grime on the left sleeve of his pretty black leather jacket.

“Maybe,” the Soldier-in-Blue said, “if you talk about it, you might feel better.”

Blood dripping down his chin, he readied his sticks for a second time, and came out with his flurry. They seemed to be getting faster now, implying that Dick had insane reserves of stamina. The conditioning of this guy was insane to Duke.

Those swings were now aimed at the Soldier-in-Blue’s helmet. If grace and calculation weren’t going to work, Duke had to assume that Dick was working a power game.

Dick Grayson did not live long enough to see the Soldier-in-Blue completely disassemble Black Manta, even when he was in _his _full suit of armor. If he had, he might have just run away.

The Soldier-in-Blue dodged a left, then a right, and just when Dick was off balance, unleashed a lunge kick that caught Dick Grayson right in the solar plexus.

It was an ungodly stiff one.

Duke knew this because Dick Grayson staggered back, doubled over, and puked before dropping to his knees.

He’d have to shift back to the present to be sure, but he thought he saw a weird pink stain on the concrete before he shifted into the past.

The Soldier-in-Blue put their hands on their hips and looked down at Dick. Condescension and derision seemed to fume from between the plates in their armor.

“This is the last fight you get into?” the Soldier-in-Blue asked. “Your last scuffle on this Earth ends with you vomiting in an alley?”

The Soldier-in-Blue shook their head.

“You… were not worth the hype.”

And with that, they kicked Dick Grayson in the side of the face so hard that his head collided with--and dented--the side of his car.

* * *

**THE RH KANE BUILDING**

“The dirty work you left to your protege,” Cassandra said. “But getting all of the players on the board? That was you.”

Ra’s put both of his hands on the kitchen table and sat up straight.

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” Cassandra asked. “Guys like you can’t help but sign their work.”

“It is not,” Ra’s said, “why I am here… But you were right about the first item. The League of Assassins has not been dark for the better part of these last two decades. We have been preparing. Waiting for the right moment to strike. And the moment is now.”

“Is it?”

“Oh, indeed,” Ra’s said. “For these last centuries my goal has been the decimation of humanity before it falls from the brink.”

There was a hitch in the movement of his face. An involuntary bunching of the shoulders.

He was lying.

But Cassandra didn’t think that she had to read his body language to know it.

She just had to read the papers.

Great strides had been made in the past fifteen years. Carbon emissions were down. Vertical farming had taken root in major cities, completely demolishing urban food deserts. New environmental legislation had been implemented the world over. And Greenland had posted its first back-to-back temperature drop in almost two decades.

Humanity hadn’t entirely pulled itself back from the brink… but it was getting the notion that standing so close to the brink wasn’t strictly a good idea.

_If I don’t call bullshit now, I won’t get to the whole night…_

“Bullshit,” Cassandra said.

Much to her pleasure, Ra’s al Ghul rankled at the very word.

“If you were pulling your usual eco-crap,” Cassandra said, “you wouldn’t have picked a dying city in which to do it. I’ve studied your files, Ra’s. You’ve gotten away with some bad stuff in almost every corner of the globe… except Gotham City. You want to know the difference between you and Napoleon? Napoleon didn’t try to redo Waterloo over and over again. It’s never been about humanity or the planet with you. You go on your insane little quests because seven _million _people are easier to rule than seven _billion. _ And you start _here? _ The place that’s beaten you time and time again? This is _revenge _for you.”

Ra’s straightened himself up again, trying to project the air of debonair menace that he had just, for the moment, lost.

“Ah,” she said. “Napoleon. Yet another man whose hand I’ve shaken. You have your moments, Miss Cain.”

_“Wayne,” _Cassandra said, using her rasp to drop her voice low. “My last name is _Wayne. _ And I was a goalie in my former life, because nothing gets past me.”

Cassandra sat back. In great contrast to the mannered stiffness of Ra’s al Ghul, she put her feet up on the table.

_It’s my table._

_Fuck him._

“So how high does this go?” Cassandra asked. “You seem like a gloater. Get to gloating.”

“Quite high indeed,” Ra’s said. “The halls of power in Kaznia, as a matter of fact. All it takes is to put the right weapon in the right pair of hands, spread the right rumor, and you will have the involvement of ARGUS. That’s how I got Agent Kent to join in our little game. Putting the body of that Kaznian diplomat in the car trunk of a certain _‘private eye’ _ensured the participation of one Tim Drake. Barbara Gordon, Harper Row, Selina Wayne, and… _The Detective… _were all going to be involved anyway. This is their city, after all. Everyone you love, everyone you care for, all in the firing line. This centers on you, Miss Cain. It _all _does.”

Cassandra grimaced. “Dick Grayson?”

She knew he had nothing to do with it. She wanted to hear his reasons why not.

“Actually,” Ra’s said, “he did not factor into my plans. I was under the impression that yourself and Mister Grayson were _‘on the outs,’ _as it were. I _must _ask my protege how she managed that feat.”

Cassandra closed her eyes.

In the amphitheater of her mind, she saw her. A red dress, brown ponytail cascading down her shoulder, wet blue eyes, standing slightly stoop-shouldered.

She opened her eyes again.

“And Stephanie Brown?”

Ra’s smiled and clapped his hands, as though he’d performed a pedestrian magic trick that had nonetheless shocked and amazed a small child.

“Ah,” he said, “my favorite element. It took a little doing. Miss Brown has been mostly been centered in Europe for fourteen years under an assumed name, providing her services as a bodyguard for various criminal entities. As I recall, her career as a Gotham City vigilante was a most unremarkable one. Should difficulties arise, I don’t see her presenting much of an obstacle.”

Cassandra snorted.

“Clearly you haven’t met Stephanie Brown.”

“Neither have you,” Ra’s said. “For the past fourteen years, at any rate.”

“If she’s half the entity she was back in the old days,” Cassandra said, “she’s almost unkillable. She’s unstoppable through sheer force of will. Vast reservoirs of determination and even _deeper _pools of unrelenting rage. She’s gone against fighters infinitely better trained than she was, and came out on top. She went toe-to-toe with your grandson and tanked one of the worst ass-kickings I’ve ever seen. That was before she took advantage of how tired he’d made himself, and beat him into a puddle of mewling. whiny shit.”

Ra’s looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t have a grandson.”

Cassandra snorted again.

“Not anymore you don’t.”

* * *

**ZIGGY’S CAR WASH**

Dick Grayson could barely get to his feet.

The Soldier-in-Blue had taken the back of his leather jacket and yanked it over his head, blinding him. They had then proceeded to pummel the poor man with vicious rights until he dropped to his knees, getting slower and slower each time he tried to get up.

They paused for a few seconds, just staring at the hooded and beaten Grayson, before they reached down and yanked the jacket off of Dick’s shoulders with one hand.

Dick Grayson rained blood. His face was a crimson mask and his right eye was swollen shut. Duke had noticed that it had gotten to the point that Dick wasn’t even making any noise when the punches were coming down.

The Soldier-in-Blue paced back and forth in front of him, before they threw the leather jacket up on the roof of the car wash. Evidence or not, Duke would see to it that that jacket was retrieved, cleaned, and returned to Dick’s wife Bea.

“You know,” the Soldier-in-Blue said, “the phenomenon of superheroes in America would have died out if it weren’t for you. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman would have been in it for the long haul, but precious few others would have answered the call. But they did. Because of you. Word got out that an eight-year-old kid named ‘Robin’ was out there at Batman’s side helping him kick ass and take names, and now every idiot with easy access to a fabric store to make a cape put their lives in danger. What’s worse, you got other kids doing it. You called yourself a Teen Titan, even got a building shaped like a T, and invited other kids to get in the pit with you.”

The Soldier-in-Blue knelt down and tried to look in Dick’s eyes, but his head just couldn’t rise.

“I know Batman gets all the flack for getting kids killed,” the Soldier-in-Blue said, “but he don’t have shit on you. Terra? Kole? The first Aquagirl? And poor Danny Chase doesn’t even have a _statue. _ Would Beast Boy have left the Doom Patrol if he wasn’t trying to sniff your jock? Do you think the stuff you taught him got him killed at the Battle of Founders Island?”

And Dick Grayson was too beaten down to give any kind of response whatsoever.

“There is no version of this story,” the Soldier-in-Blue said, “that doesn’t end with you dead by midnight. That’s just the way it is. Thirty years, you had a good run, but it’s over now… But there are two things that I can do to put your mind at ease before you serve your purpose and go in the ground.”

The Soldier-in-Blue knelt before him.

“No harm will come to your wife Bea,” the Soldier-in-Blue said. “She didn’t do anything to anybody. The thing I have with you? With Bruce Wayne? With every asshole in a cape that infests this city? It’s both business _and _personal. But I know when too far is too far. Bea is safe.”

The Soldier-in-Blue tilted their helmet as Dick _slooooooooooooowly _moved his shoulder to them.

Duke had to wonder how he would act in a moment like this. If he could take a beating like that before someone having the gall to mention Riko. He’d never been in such a dire situation, but he liked to flatter himself that if a bad guy mentioned his family, he’d shrug off whatever pain he was feeling and get to whipping ass like Popeye after mainlining an entire spinach field.

But to Duke Thomas’ horror, Dick moving his shoulder like that _was _the pump of adrenaline. That _was _him trying to fight back. He’d just been so soundly defeated that moving his shoulder was all the offence he could put up.

“And the second thing,” the Soldier-in-Blue said, is a special one indeed. See… You’d probably like to know who’s been doing this to you…. I tell you this to put your mind at ease. I also tell you this because I know… I just _know… _that The Signal is using his powers to see into this very moment.”

Duke felt a shiver go up his spine.

“And I’d hate to disappoint Detective Thomas,” they said.

The Soldier-in-Blue gently held Dick’s face in both hands…

...looked him in his one functioning blue eye…

...and told him their name.

* * *

**THE RH KANE BUILDING**

“I know the reason,” Cassandra said. “The real reason. Why you’re here.”

Ra’s al Ghul tilted his head, the malevolent poltergeist of a grin playing across his thin lips.

“The girl,” Cassandra said. “You’re here to kill Aaliyah Ramsey.”

“The great irony,” Ra’s said, “is that if Talia had come home and told me that David Hyde was the man she wished to be with instead of Bruce Wayne… I’d have accepted it whole-heartedly. Black Manta would have made a wonderful addition. To both the family and the League.”

“But she had a daughter instead of a son.”

“Yes,” Ra’s said. “As useful as Talia may have been at certain times, she has had an uncanny knack for finding new ways to disappoint me.”

“They’re called _‘granddaughters,’” _Cassandra said. “Not _‘disappointments.’”_

“I don’t need a granddaughter. I need a grand _son. _ To continue the line. Nevertheless, am I so obvious? Or is history so plain? Every continent can tell tales of what happens when illegitimate heirs and usurpers are not pulled out by the root.”

“That usurper,” Cassandra said, “is a fifteen-year-old cheerleader from North Carolina. And what, you think she’s gonna raise an army and storm Nanda Parbat?”

“When you live as long as I have,” Ra’s said, “you realize that what people call miracles are merely quirks in probability. I have lived for centuries and I have seen everything. I have seen man walk on the moon, information traverse the globe in the blink of an eye, and the genesis of both the automobile and the airplane. I have seen well-bred empires crumble to dust, and I have seen peanut farmers and game show hosts elevated to the halls of power. If you ask me whether or not a simple schoolgirl marshaling the will and the resources to openly assault the League of Assassins would be the strangest thing I had ever seen, I would have to tell you that it is not.”

Ra’s sighed and folded his arms.

“But I promise you,” he said. “Upon my honor, I will not harm a single hair on Aaliyah’s head.”

She gave his posture and movement a once-over.

“You’re not lying.”

“I am not, Miss Cain.”

“But you’re not telling me everything.”

Ra’s leaned forward.

“When Aaliyah Ramsey dies,” he said, “the one who kills her shall be _you.”_

Cassandra’s first impulse was to respond that there was no way in Hell that she would ever do that. She had committed murder once as a child, and every once in a while, to this day, the scene still played out in her nightmares.

“I told you that this excursion of mine into Gotham City revolved around you,” Ra’s said, “and it is the truth. I cannot tell you how much of the League’s resources were allocated to David Cain to make you into the perfect weapon. And tonight, after over three decades, I have come for the return on my investment.”

“I’m not your assassin, Ra’s. And I’m damn sure not your bodyguard.”

“I do not wish you to be my bodyguard,” Ra’s al Ghul said. “I wish you to be my _bride.”_

A wave of revulsion stormed its way through Cassandra’s entire body. But looking over Ra’s, again, there was no lust or perversion to be found.

He was just… doing the math.

“The facts,” Ra’s said after he let that hang in the air, “are that I have been blessed with two daughters. One, Nyssa, I had killed for her willfulness. The other has made it into her fifties without producing a son. The line of The Demon must continue.”

Ra’s glanced about the apartment before he continued speaking.

“There is something about yourself that you need to know,” he said. “From the moment of your very conception, you were a tool. Something designed to act in utility to higher minds than your own. You were bred and trained to kill at the expense of all else. And though you ran from your duty, you fell in with The Detective. He dressed you as a Bat and gave you orders to _protect _and _defend _the common rabble, again at the expense of all else. And when you finally matured, when you were given the chance to choose what you wanted to do with your life, you became…”

Ra’s pointed at the living room wall.

Where the posters from all of Cassandra’s old plays were hanging.

“...an _actor,” _he finished as he lowered his hand again. “A line of work where you are told what to do and what to say. You can memorize Shakespeare, Miss Cain. You can quote Pericles and reference Napoleon. But none of this changes the fact that you… are… an… _instrument! _ And a rather blunt one at that. And yes, you can say you can fight it, but you’ve been doing that since you escaped from your birth father, and look where it has gotten you. Performing like a fool under the delusion that it was your idea all along.”

He folded his arms on the kitchen table and hunched over, peering at her intently.

“Giving in,” he said, “accepting your destiny… is like falling into a warm bath. And I fear that you will realize, all too late, that I am trying to _help _you.”

Ra’s al Ghul sat up straight again.

“Will you accept my offer?” he asked. “Will you help continue the line of the Demon? Will the usurper Aaliyah die by your hand?”

Cassandra could feel the hatred boil beneath the skin of her face.

And she _still _didn’t hesitate.

“No,” she said.

Ra’s furrowed his brow. “Then I am sorry to say that everything that happens past this evening is squarely upon your head. You could have avoided all of it… You could have said yes.”

With that, Ra’s rose from the table. He took his green cloak off the back of the chair and quickly fastened it around his neck.

“I must apologize for intruding upon your hospitality,” Ra’s said. “I shall see myself out.”

Ra’s al Ghul, the Head of the Demon, walked past Cassanrda Wayne, opened the apartment door, and left.

Cassandra glanced down at her chest. The red dot from the sniper scope had disappeared.

She looked over at the coffee table and got up to fetch her phone. She had a few calls to make.

Before she could make the first one, however, she had one incoming.

It was Duke.

“Hello?” Cassandra said.

“I have news,” said Duke.

“So do I.”

“I have a name.”

“A what?” Cassandra asked. 

“A name for our friend in the blue armor,” said Duke. “They are--”

“She.”

“Huh?”

Cassandra sighed. “I have it on good authority that the blue armor person is a woman. I’ll tell you when we’re done.

“Okay,” said Duke. “Anyway, _she… _is calling herself _‘The Arkham Knight.’”_


	14. The Great Gotham Team-Up, Part Two

**Chapter 14: The Great Gotham Team-Up, Part Two**

**ROBINSON PARK - TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO**

A supervillain was holding sway in the heart of Gotham City.

And no one bothered to stop him.

Last month, the Santa Priscan horror known only as _“Bane” _broke The Bat. The effect of the event was seismic, as everyone in a position of power, from the mayor to the crime families to even rank-and-file police officers were affected.

In the wake of this upheaval in Gotham City’s social order, it was agreed upon by most who could do anything about it (save for the always obstinate and irritatingly incorruptible Police Commissioner James Gordon) that the city would just let Bane keep his headquarters.

That headquarters being Robinson Park.

Situated in the middle of the mainland, Robinson Park took up a whopping three-hundred-twenty-one acres of real estate; a pastoral paradise in the middle of Gotham City’s filth-encrusted and gothic urban sprawl. There was a Shakespeare festival here every summer. A carousel on the north end, a skating rink on the south. And in the middle was the vast botanical garden where Bane had set up shop.

The perimeter of the park had developed security detail of uniformed police officers as of late. And why wouldn’t it? With The Bat out of the picture, the mob could move a little more freely and those bribes and kickbacks could trickle from Chief O’Hara on down. Of _course _the GCPD would provide free security for Bane’s enterprise. He’d be the kind of guy who remembered his friends, right?

Officer Andre Oberbeck was waiting in the kiosk near the western entrance of Robinson Park, watching the feed from the security cameras, waiting for Officers Jimmy Fink and Isaac Rochester to come back with coffee, and reading a dog-eared copy of Michael Crichton’s _Jurassic Park _.

The work’s themes, as far as it could be said to have any at all, were lost on Officer Oberbeck. He just wanted to read about ancient monsters eating people. Which could be said was an admirable motive, if for no other reason than that motive was pure.

Officer Oberbeck dropped his book, the poor man, and reached down from the painful plastic chair in which he sat to retrieve it.

When he came back up, he noticed that the monitors displaying the security feeds had all cut to static.

He was about to radio out with this distressing bit of information, when in the doorway appeared Officers Fink and Rochester.

Their hands were empty, which means they did not have coffee.

The fuckers.

“If you’re not gonna get coffee,” Officer Oberbeck said, “at least gimme my m--”

** _THONK!_ **

Officer Fink’s nightstick rebounded off the skull of Officer Oberbeck. He was sent to the hard concrete floor, and his book was sent flying.

He was waging a war against his body’s annoying insistence on rendering itself unconscious. And he was losing.

Two things were obvious as Officer Oberbeck’s vision went dark.

The first was that Officers Fink and Rochester had these little white paper cards sticking out from beneath their uniform caps.

The second was the silhouette of the man who accompanied them.

He struck a figure roughly six feet tall… but the more Officer Oberbeck focused, the more he realized how much of that figure was top hat. The man wearing it didn’t even crack five feet.

“O frabjous day,” The Mad Hatter said. “Callooh, callay!”

And the last thing Officer Oberbeck remembered hearing before he woke up in the hospital hours later was the Mad Hatter saying:

“Western security is well taken care of, Batman.”

* * *

“Good,” Batman said.

Beyond the police perimeter on the borders of Robinson Park, there were installations of soldiers. Beyond them, training camps for Bane’s men. And beyond that, Bane himself in the botanical gardens.

It would take a master of stealth and subterfuge to sneak past the first three and get to the lone oak tree outside the botanical gardens without being detected.

So naturally, Batman did just that.

As he eyed the air conditioning system on the roof of the facility, he switched radio frequencies in his cowl.

“Status update on the eastern side.”

* * *

_If my dad could see these clowns, _Batgirl thought, _he’d lose his lunch all over himself._

Three male officers were starry-eyed and drooling as they were ensorcelled by Poison Ivy’s wiles, both feminine and chemical.

It had been that way at three of the last four police kiosks that Batgirl, Poison Ivy, and The Carpenter had been to.

The fourth one had a female officer among their ranks. Apparently of the heterosexual persuasion, if Poison Ivy’s chemical seduction worked the way she said it did. Poison Ivy used her pheromones on the two male officers. The third female officer was blasted into unconsciousness by The Carpenter’s mallet.

The Carpenter was giving said mallet a couple of practice swings as Poison Ivy worked her lascivious magic.

_“You’ll help us with the assault?” _Poison Ivy asked the officers she was controlling.

The three of them nodded their heads so vigorously that their uniform caps shifted on their heads.

“Yup.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Taking down Bane sounds like a party, girl.”

_"And you’ll make sure nothing happens to little ol’ me?” _Ivy asked.

The three officers shook their heads so vociferously that their cheeks made weird noises.

“Nope.

“Nuh-uh.”

“I would eat my own dad’s shit before I would let that happen, boo.”

Batgirl rolled her eyes, and put her fingers to her cowl. “East is clear.”

* * *

“Good,” Batman said.

Another frequency switch.

“Cobblepot, come in.”

* * *

Eight stretch limousines were working a circuit around the middle of the mainland.

Seven of those eight limos contained eight of The Penguin’s henchmen. Save for the last, which contained seven henchmen and The Penguin himself.

And he was just one fourth of the initial assault. The Penguin would take the northeast corner of Robinson Park. Two-Face and his goons would take the southeast. The Riddler and his cronies would take the southwest. That just left Ra’s al Ghul, Talia al Ghul, and a contingent of the League of Assassins to take the northwest.

Batman had left The Penguin in charge of coordination. It came between Cobblepot and Ra’s. If one were to venture a guess that Batman chose Cobblepot because he figured that even this loathsome and spoiled gun-runner was more trustworthy than The Demon Himself… then one would be correct.

“I take it this is the signal to charge?” The Penguin asked.

“It is,” Batman said through the earpiece he had provided. “Send the signal to the others. You’ll have a contingent of mind-controlled GCPD officers fighting alongside you in the first wave of the assault. No one dies, but that goes for those cops especially. They’re innocent.”

The Penguin rolled his eyes. “They have Falcone and Maroni money in their pockets and they just let Bane take over the park. But I’ve never been one to interfere with your little games of pretend.”

The one thing that could possibly bring a smile to The Penguin’s face at this humiliating and compromising juncture was the fact that he could almost hear the dour and self-righteous superhero with whom he was forced to work for the greater good frown and glower over the radio.

“Batman out,” he said after a brief pause.

The Penguin smiled wider, and started to alert the others.

The event that the coming years would dub _“The Great Gotham Team-Up” _had begun in earnest.

* * *

Batman had spent the last few minutes wriggling through air conditioning vents, making his way into the heart of the Robinson Park Botanical Gardens.

At the center of the facility was the Rose Garden.

And at the center of that sat Bane himself.

He was clad in wide black boots, roomy black cargo pants, and a black tank top that stretched across his muscular torso. The mask he wore was black and white, and the only bit of color on his person were three green tubes that entered the flesh of both arms and the base of his spine. They were hooked up to Venom tanks on his back. One press of a button on the back of his mask, and those tubes would dispense Venom into his musculature, making him infinitely stronger.

This was the man who had broken Batman’s back. And now here he sat on a large handcrafted throne in the middle of the rose garden like a warrior king awaiting word of the next battle.

Bane would not have to wait long.

One of Bane’s men, in the same kind of mask that they all wore, entered the rose garden hurriedly and stopped in front of the man himself.

“Sir,” he said. “The park is under attack. Cops, supervillains, I think someone saw Batgirl. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

After a pause, Bane spoke in a deep voice marbled with a thick Santa Priscan accent.

“The Bat has made his play,” he said.

And with this, Bane stood. All imposing six-and-a-half feet of him.

“Come out,” Bane said. “I know you are here.”

Batman kicked the duct open, and dropped to the floor. He landed in a kneeling position, his long black cape surrounding him.

He stood with fire in his eyes.

As Bane’s flunky departed the rose garden, Bane and Batman stared each other down.

“I broke you,” Bane said.

“Yes,” said Batman. “You did.”

“You view my presence here as a violation of your dominion over Gotham City.”

Batman wouldn’t have quite put it that way, but he couldn’t explain his service to the citizens of Gotham in a way that someone as lustful for power as Bane could comprehend.

“Yes,” Batman said. “I do.”

“And now you have summoned an army to occupy my soldiers while you and I engage in single combat as honorable men.”

Bane was fiercely intelligent and unbelievably strong.

He was also, however, new to how all of this worked.

There are some sights in Gotham City that those of a nefarious and criminal bent had learned early on to run from. Preferably screaming while doing so.

And Bane was looking at one such sight at that very moment.

For Batman… _smiled._

“No,” Batman said. “I’m not.”

He didn’t think it was possible for him to have planned it any better than he had. As soon as Batman finished saying that, a noise could faintly be heard in the rose garden.

**Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep…**

As the seconds passed, the beeping got louder. And Batman backed up.

“I wouldn’t stand there if I were you, Bane.”

The beeping kept getting louder. And Bane looked at the ground as he realized what Batman had planned.

It was coming from the sewer beneath the rose garden.

Bane tore his eyes from the ground and glared at Batman. He was about to say something, but…

**BOOOOOOM!**

The floor gave way in a hail of concrete, soil, and rose petals. The sound that filled the immense rose garden now was something that sounded like a hissing steam pipe.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS…

Batman thought it was a shame that there were so many petals, such a mist of dirt between himself and Bane.

He wanted to see his face.

He wanted to see Bane’s expression when he realized that that hissing steam pipe… _wasn’t _a hissing steam pipe.

“SSSSSSSSOLOMONNN GRUNNNNDYYYYYY…”

A pair of massive gray hands emerged from the hole in the ground and found purchase at Bane’s feet.

“BORRRRRRN ON A MONDAYYYYYY…”

A flat gray head peaked with white hair and ornamented by filmy yellow eyes arose.

“CHRISTENED ON TUUUUUUUUESDAYYYYYYY…”

All nine feet of the undead monster Solomon Grundy had emerged from the sewer, wearing old tattered and filthy dungarees, and a mess of disgusting black rags that used to be a shirt… and he had Bane in his sights.

Now that the mist of dirt had cleared, Batman could see Bane’s face.

He looked terrified.

And Batman found it within himself to smile even wider.

Bane pressed that button on the back of his mask.

The tubes in his body vibrated and turned green. Bane groaned as his musculature rippled and inflated. Batman heard bones cracking as Bane grew another foot and a half.

Bane roared.

Grundy roared louder.

Then they charged at each other.

And as the two behemoths collided, Batman leaned against a nearby pillar, folded his arms, and watched the floor show.

* * *

The initial onslaught had completely subsumed the installations within the perimeter. Only when the hodgepodge of supervillains, henchmen, teen sidekicks, and brainwashed cops reached the training grounds did they finally meet resistance.

Within The Riddler’s crew was Catwoman.

Because Batman did not fully trust Catwoman, he had assigned Robin to accompany her.

The two had gotten to the southwest training grounds just as they had turned into a maelstrom.

Bane’s men were armed with assault weapons, and just as Catwoman was about to grab the kid by the cape and drag him to cover, the sorceress Doctor Cassandra Spellcraft had begun to levitate far above them. She spread out her arms and said something that Catwoman couldn’t quite make out.

And all of the weapons in the hands of Bane’s men had turned, in a puff of red smoke, into adorable Corgi puppies.

“PET THEM!” Spellcraft bellowed as the deeply confused soldiers of Bane set the puppies down on the grass. “THEY LOVE YOU SO MUCH!”

Catwoman wasn’t a dog person, but still.

_Aww…_

In the absence of guns, the conflict had turned into a fistfight.

To her left, Bookworm was pummeling Bane’s men with a large leather-bound copy of _War & Peace, _and doing a surprisingly good job holding his own.

To Catwoman’s right, Killer Croc had picked a motherfucker up and started swinging him into a congregation of five similarly clad motherfuckers.

Behind her, Mister Freeze was encasing soldiers in ice from the waist down.

And in front of her…

“CATWOMAN, COME ON!”

...Robin, standing next to a transport truck, had picked a fight against three of Bane’s men that he couldn’t possibly win.

Catwoman groaned and unspooled her whip.

With a sharp flick of the wrist, she cracked her whip against the forehead of the one in front. It must have hurt, even through the mask he wore, because he was still occupied holding his head when she leapt and kicked him in the throat. 

The one next to him, however, unloaded a right hook into the side of her face. Catwoman, opting to turn lemons into lemonade, spun around with the momentum of the blow, and clawed the ever-living fuck out of his face with her left hand.

As he was holding his face and screaming, Catwoman grabbed the side of his head, and unleashed three sound, rapid elbows into the side of his face…

_Wham-wham-wham!_

...dropping him to the dirt.

As Catwoman shook off that punch to the face, she could hear muffled thudding.

The third henchman was repeatedly kneeing Robin in the gut, robbing him of breath.

Catwoman rolled her eyes. _Jesus, Batman, you couldn’t find a kid that can take out ONE GUY?_

She unzipped the pouch on her left arm, and secured a pair of bolos. She held one and started swinging the other by the monofilament fiber thread that connected them.

_I’m gonna have to do this _juuuuuuust _right…_

Catwoman lined up her shot, and let loose.

The thread hit him in the forehead, which meant the bolos themselves would wrap around and…

**CLONK!**

...hit him on the bridge of the nose.

The henchman reeled back a couple of paces before he fell flat on his back out cold.

As she came upon Robin, he was spitting blood into the dirt from a split lip.

“I could have had him,” he said.

“No,” Catwoman said. “You couldn’t. This the truck?”

Robin stood up straight, caught his breath, and opened the black canvas covers that blanketed the rear of the truck.

Inside were twelve red steel barrels.

Barrels which must have contained the Venom that Batman had assigned she and Robin to secure.

“Let me bring my lenses down,” Robin said. “Do some analysis.”

“Uh-huh,” Catwoman said.

As the battle raged, as Robin conducted his analysis, Catwoman surreptitiously removed a small plastic cap from the claw on her right index finger.

The claw dripped a green liquid. 

“This is it,” Robin said. “This is the Venom.”

“Good,” Catwoman said, before she reached out and lightly drew that claw across the narrow strip of exposed flesh of Robin’s neck.

Robin grabbed his neck and jumped as though, well, he’d just been scratched on the back of the neck by a grown woman in a cat costume.

“Hey!” Robin called out, startled. “What… did… you… do…”

Robin collapsed onto the grass, unconscious.

_Note to self, _Catwoman thought. _Thank Ivy again for that sedative. She said fast-acting, and by God, she meant it._

She was going to kidnap Robin.

She was going to steal the Venom.

But there was something she needed to do first.

Catwoman reached into a small bag hanging from a belt around her waist. She took out a roll of Scotch tape…

...and a flash drive.

* * *

In the middle of the chaos on the southeast of the botanical gardens, Batgirl watched Poison Ivy double over in pain.

The Carpenter had just nailed the hand of one of Bane’s henchmen to a tree. “Is, uh… Is she supposed to be doing that?”

“My _babies,” _Ivy moaned. “Bane and Grundy are killing my _babies! _ Batman said he’d keep them safe! ** I’LL BUTCHER THEM ALL FOR WHAT THEY’VE DONE!”**

As Batgirl reached for her utility belt, Ivy’s eyes caught The Carpenter.

She saw her…

...saw that she had used a tree in a brutal way to dispatch a goon…

...and put two and two together.

_“You!” _Ivy bellowed at The Carpenter. “What did you do to that tr--””

**BZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!**

In the middle of her evil rant, Ivy did not notice that Batgirl had liberated an electric Batarang from her bright yellow utility belt and flung it at her.

Poison Ivy was wrapped in blue tendrils of electricity, before she dropped to the dirt unconscious.

“Thanks,” The Carpenter said as she put her mallet back in the loop of her tool belt, instead opting for a screwdriver sticking out of her apron.

Batgirl nodded at her.

The incapacitation of Poison Ivy, however, added a new wrinkle to the plan.

Because half of the uniformed cops that Ivy had been mind controlling stopped in the middle of what they were doing, and shook their heads as though they were awakening from some spell.

Which, to be fair, was exactly what happened.

“W--What’s going on?” one of the uniformed officers asked.

“We’re about to take down Bane,” Batgirl said as she readied some more Batarangs for the next wave of the henchmen. “You in, or you out?”

And this man, this officer of the law, sworn to protect and to serve the citizens of Gotham from the criminal element that plagued the city… turned to his cohorts and yelled “HEY GUYS, LET’S GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!”

And half of the cops quit the field of battle.

“Ugh,” Batgirl said to herself. “I hope dad fires you all…”

* * *

It had been a considerable pain in Batman’s neck getting the sonic ping system set up in the sewers, calibrated at just the right frequency to lure Solomon Grundy precisely where he needed to go.

But now that he was watching the fruits of his labor, Batman felt a warm coating of contentment spread throughout his insides.

Contrary to popular belief, Batman was thoroughly capable of having fun. He was only incapable of admitting it to a living soul, save himself on a good day.

And this, to be sure, was a good day.

_Is this what watching TV is like? _Batman asked himself as he watched Bane and Solomon Grundy beat each other into paste. _Because if it is, I should watch more TV._

Bane landed a series of rights and lefts to Grundy’s head that were strong enough and loud enough to set off car alarms, before he grabbed both sides of the zombie’s face, and delivered a massive headbutt right to the bridge of the nose.

The thing about Solomon Grundy was that he wasn’t much for the whole _“feeling pain” _thing.

Grundy’s nose didn’t just break. It almost _fell off, _still only barely secured to the rest of his face by a sliver of rotten gray skin.

Solomon Grundy swung one of his gargantuan fists at Bane…

...only for Bane to catch it and give a sharp tug, severing the limb in the process.

Solomon Grundy had been dead for well over a hundred years, so what issued from the stump was simply slimy gray flesh and a cloud of dried blood that just wafted in the air, brown, as though someone had thrown a handful of cayenne pepper at a ceiling fan.

Bane threw Grundy’s severed right arm back at him at a mind-boggling speed, knocking him to the dirt.

He smiled. Bane’s mouth was a bloody, half-filled cemetery of broken teeth.

“You were spat from Hell itself,” Bane said, “and you are still found wanting. Not even _death _can send a suitable soldier.”

With this, Bane spread out his arms and screamed to the heavens.

“BAAAAAAAANE ENDUUUUUUUUURES!”

While he was doing this, however, he missed the fact that Grundy picked up his own severed arm, and swung it directly into Bane’s crotch.

Judging from the high, off-tenor moan that came from Bane’s lips, Batman surmised that he did not _“endure” _quite as spectacularly as he had hoped.

Holding himself, dropping to his knees, Bane looked up to see Grundy reaching for his head with his one remaining hand.

Apparently, Grundy thought that that headbutt he’d received was such a good idea that he’d start handing out a few of his own.

**THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK!**

Seven of them in rapid succession. Enough to cut through Bane’s mask, and douse both of them in Bane’s blood.

Batman eased himself off the pillar. He didn’t worry about Grundy dying. Grundy died all the time. But _Bane _dying simply would not do.

But he could see, from the rising of his bloody chest, that he was still breathing. Still had fight in him.

Batman leaned against the pillar again.

* * *

Firefly flitted above the grounds of Robinson Park in his flight suit, spraying the ground with napalm, scattering Bane’s men.

‘WALK INTO THE FLAME!” he screamed. “SHE IS HUNGRY!”

It was alright, though. Mister Freeze was using his cold gun to put the fires out. From what Batgirl could see, they were all sticking to the no-kill rule set out for them.

Kite Man tried to be that cool, flying above them in his _Kite _Suit. But one of Bane’s men threw a rock at him and he crashed into the dirt. Almost as soon as he hit the ground, a group of Bane’s men descended upon him. Several of the other supervillains stopped, watched, and started yelling.

Not to encourage Kite Man… but to cheer on his batterers.

“HARDER!” Killer Moth yelled among the assorted whoops and hollers. “WHIP HIS ASS TILL HIS HEART STOPS BEATING!”

Speaking of G-List supervillains up shit creek, Batgirl could see Cavalier out of the corner of her eye. The _Three Musketeers _-styled gentleman thief was folding off four henchmen with his rapier.

One of them knocked it out of his hand with a stick.

Cavalier put his hands on his hips.

“Well,” he said. “It seems I have been hoist with my own petard. Well done, gentlemen.”

At which point, the four _“gentlemen” _converged to beat the shit out of him.

“OWWWWWWW!” Cavalier yelled. “MY PETARRRRRRRD!”

Batgirl’s choice as to which overwhelmed supervillain to assist was an easy one.

She would help Cavalier.

_Because seriously… _Fuck _Kite Man._

Batgirl figured now would be just a dynamite time to test out the news tun features on her gauntlets.

She rubbed her knuckles together, and they began to vibrate. She walked to the four men accosting Kite Man.

_One...Two… Three… Four… Done._

“Wow,” Batgirl said as she stood over Cavalier and his four unconscious assailants, shutting her stun-knuckles off. “These work great.”

He held out her hand, and helped Cavalier to his feet. He adjusted his mask and his plumed tricorn hat.

“Many thanks, my lady,” he said.

“Aw, shucks,” Batgirl said. “‘Tweren’t nuthin’.”

It was at this moment in the evening that Batgirl noticed something odd about the stretch of Robinson Park before her.

Namely that there was _nothing _odd about the stretch of Robinson Park before her.

The whole place was alight with fire, ice, magic spells, martial arts, and _Corgi puppies _for some strange reason, but this piece of the park was quiet… and _dark._

Batgirl got a flashlight from her utility belt and shined it into the gloom.

At least twenty of Bane’s men were unconscious and tied to trees. In the middle stood a middle-aged man about as broad as a barn, bald, and dressed in the garb of the League of Assassins.

This was Ubu. Manservant of Ra’s al Ghul.

“The Demon and his daughter humbly apologize for their inability to be in attendance this evening,” Ubu said. “But as you can clearly see, The Great Ra’s al Ghul did send a cadre of his finest men to see to the duties set before The League this night.”

The League guys had gotten in, took everyone out in silence and under cover of darkness, and had left without leaving so much as a footprint.

Against her better judgment, Batgirl was impressed.

* * *

As the fight between Bane and Grundy wound down, Batman worked his way behind them.

Grundy was slowing down. Whether he was getting bored, getting tired, or if boredom and fatigue were things from which Solomon Grundy could suffer, Batman did not know.

Being as Grundy had just the one arm left, he was bringing his blows down on either side of Bane’s head.

**WHUMP!**

One came down on the right side of the face of the kneeling Bane. His blood watered the roses.

**WHUMP!**

A punch on the left side tore Bane’s mask open even wider.

**WHUMP!**

Another on the right. A molar made a jagged journey out of Bane’s mouth, down the front of his blood-caked chest, and into the dirt.

And just as Grundy reared back for another… Bane’s right hand shot out.

He did not punch Grundy’s chest.

He punched _through _Grundy’s chest.

Dry brown blood emerged from the wound. Grundy grunted, and dimly stared at the hole in his torso. 

And that’s when Bane pulled down.

The desiccated blood came down in heavy flakes. Rotten gray skin tore with a ragged wet sound. Both sternum and ribs crunched thickly. And Grundy’s innards fell from his body in broken, parched, tubular clumps, as though they’d been worms made out of colorless Play-Doh that had subsequently been left in the sun.

Solomon Grundy made no sound as he fell over dead.

Again.

And not for the last time.

Bane raised his filthy bare arms toward the roof of the rose garden’s glass dome and howled in triumph from a bloody, broken mouth.

As he did so, Batman walked up behind him, retrieved a Batarang from his utility belt, and used it to cut all of the Venom tubes on Bane’s back.

This seemed to destroy Bane in a way Grundy never could.

As the vivid green fluid sprayed from the pump, Bane fell on his face into the dirt and the roses as he shrank, as his muscles deflated.

Batman walked around to look at him.

“You…” Bane said. “I met you… on the field of battle… as a _warrior… _and you… you _cheated.”_

Batman didn’t think this was something Bane was capable of understanding. And if he could, then Batman would wager that he did not _want _to understand.

Bane had wanted to fight Batman because Batman was the strongest and most powerful entity in Gotham City. Bane had felt as though he needed to prove himself, and had speculated Batman did as well. He assumed that Batman was like him, which just wasn’t the case.

Being Batman wasn’t about power. Being Batman was about being a servant to the people who had no power for themselves. Those with no defense in the dark and looming night against the long shadows that harbored ill intent.

Batman humored Bane once, and had gotten his back broken in the process. The ordeal revealed a weakness in Batman, to be sure, but not of the physical kind.

He had simply taken his eye off of the prize. He had forgotten, just for a moment, the real reason he was who he was.

“It’s justice,” Batman said. “There _is _no cheating.”

Batman kicked Bane in the face, knocking him unconscious.

* * *

As soon as the assault had gotten to the botanical gardens proper, Batman had ordered Batgirl to do the one thing that, in a perfect world, every citizen should feel good about doing when they saw a crime being committed.

He ordered Batgirl to call the cops.

By the time they got there, all of Bane’s henchmen had either fled or been incapacitated, and there wasn’t a single supervillain in all of Robinson Park.

There were zero casualties… save for Solomon Grundy, but dying was his thing.

As he emerged from the botanical gardens, Batman saw Batgirl.

And she was holding a Corgi, for some strange reason.

“He’s mine,” she said. “You can’t have him.”

Batman didn’t say anything. He just looked around. Until finally, he asked:

“Where are Robin and Catwoman?”

* * *

They arrived at the position at which Selina Kyle and Jason Todd were supposed to be a few minutes later.

“This is bad,” Batgirl said. “No Catwoman, no Robin… and that new and improved Venom is gone.”

Batman surveyed his surroundings until he saw something that didn’t fit.

He pointed at a tree and said “There.”

Taped to that tree was a flash drive. And Batman knew that Selina had left it for him, because this flash drive bore the _Hello, Kitty _logo.

He scanned the drive with the underside of his gauntlet.

“It contains a video file,” Batman said. “Bring down your cowl’s lenses. We’ll watch it together.”

He plugged the flash drive into a port at the base of his cowl, and brought up the file.

What they saw was Selina Kyle in a black evening dress, drinking a glass of red wine, sitting at a table at what must have been her apartment.

_“Well, hey there, Batman,” _Selina said. _“Now… if you are watching this, then I have already both kidnapped your little sidekick, and I’ve taken the liberty of stealing that Venom that seems to have gotten you so upset. The Venom could get me a lot of money… and that brat could make sure there’s no _interference _in my getting that money.”_

Selina took a sip of her wine.

_“However,” _she said, _“if you feel the need to… part with something of your own in order to see that you get both the boy and the Venom back before I make any black market deals for the chemical on my own, well… Look, I know the little shit has a tracker on him, so activate that and come find me.”_

Selina winked at the camera.

_“See you soon, Sailor.”_

The file ended. The lenses receded back into Batman and Batgirl’s cowls.

Batman sighed and ground his teeth. He should have had Robin’s tracker on the whole time. As soon as he saw his signal leaving the park, he could have gone after him.

But he didn’t have Robin’s tracker activated until just now because… well…

_I have problems believing the worst in Selina Kyle, _Batman thought. _ Maybe I’ll learn one day._

Batman looked at Batgirl.

She had this weird look on her face. Like something rotten had just wafted beneath her nose.

_“‘Sailor?’” _she asked.


	15. A Pair of Old Ladies

**Chapter 15: A Pair of Old Ladies**

**WAYNE MANOR - NOW**

“Sailor,” Selina said.

Bruce stood at the window of the master bedroom and looked out onto the rear of the grounds.

Dick Grayson died last night. And in that time, after the initial shock, Bruce had felt himself become benumbed. He hadn’t eaten anything, he failed at his attempt at sleeping, and he had barely spoken to anyone outside of the police officers questioning him at the Gotham Royal.

But the one thing he was shocked to find was that he hadn’t shed a single tear. Not one.

And as he looked to the foggy manor grounds, he took a deep breath.

He knew why he hadn’t cried.

_Because nothing’s changed, _he thought.

Forty-three years ago, Bruce Wayne’s parents were murdered before his very eyes: shot dead by a mugger in an alley on the East End. It was the event that defined his life and haunted his nightmares. His therapist, Doctor Harleen Quinzel, posited that that night was the last night that Bruce Wayne--the _real _Bruce Wayne--had ever been seen. It had just been Batman ever since. Batman since before he put on the cowl for the first time, and Batman in these six long years since he had taken it off.

And Bruce… had to give that theory some credence.

But no matter the persona under which he operated, Bruce waged war with life itself. Because life liked to take things from him. That he spent so many ill-advised years shutting everyone out, from Dick, to Barbara, to Selina so he did not feel pain if he lost them made no difference. Life just liked to steal the people he loved all the same.

He lost his parents.

He lost Jason. And though a quirk multiversal villainy had brought an identical version of Jason Todd back into his orbit, Jason had not spoken to him since the night of the Battle of Founders Island fifteen years before.

He lost Alfred.

And now, he lost Dick.

_History does not repeat itself, _Bruce thought, _but it does on occasion rhyme. _

Loss was a constant, the pattern had not broken… and nothing changed.

He turned and looked at Selina.

She was standing there in a black pantsuit. People were coming over for an impromptu get-together, and she needed to be theLlady of Wayne Manor. She understood this without being asked.

Her green eyes were alight with bottomless concern for him. She desperately wanted to be the one who swooped in and picked up the pieces, or at the very least stopped the bleeding.

She loved him that much.

He walked to her, held his face in his hands, and softly, slowly, kissed her on the lips.

And as they held each other after the kiss broke, he spoke in her ear. His voice came out in a low, reedy croak.

“When this is done,” Bruce said, “I will fall apart. When this is done, I will let you be the best wife on Earth. But there is evil in this city. Before I grieve, I have to work, and before I work… I have to think.”

He brought his face to hers. They rested their foreheads on each other.

“I love you,” Bruce said. “But you have to go now… People are coming.”

* * *

This was supposed to be a small get-together.

But Cassandra Wayne counted thirty-three people in the grand foyer of Wayne Manor, including herself.

The remnants of Batman’s network were over in the corner. Selina, Tim, Harper, Barbara, Carrie. Aaliyah Ramsey, the girl around which this whole horror show revolved, stood sandwiched between Selina and Carrie. Violet Paige, having gotten some formal wear from The Pike delivered to her by Otis Flannegan, was standing next to Tim.

Next to them stood a delegation of Supers: Clark Kent, Lois Lane, their identical fifteen-year-old twins (and current Superboy and Supergirl) Jon and Lara Lane-Kent. Kara _“Superwoman” _Danvers was there as well. Power Girl couldn’t make it. She and Vigilante couldn’t get a decent flight out of Wyoming in time.

Flanking Barbara Gordon, almost squeezed into the corner, were the core members of the Birds of Prey. Dinah Lance-Choi was there with her husband, Professor Ryan Choi, as was Helena Bertinelli. Helena had retired as Huntress, giving her mantle to the former Misfit Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe (not in attendance). Cassandra saw a study in contrasts. Barbara had been Dick’s girlfriend for years, but she was clear-eyed and stoic. Helena, on the other hand, had had a brief and messy affair with Dick, and at present her eyes were red and glassy from what must have been hours of relentless sobbing.

Then there were the contingent of teen heroes from the past. Donna Troy, Cyborg, Tempest, Wally _“The Flash” _West, Jinny Hex, as well as a devastatingly handsome man in his late twenties wearing a black blazer over a deep red shirt that she couldn’t identify right away. Xiomara _“Crush” _Rojas, wearing a black men’s suit, was there as well. Still tall, still buff, still rocking the same black undercut she had when she was eighteen.

Crush saw Cassandra watching her out of the corner of her eye. She looked at her, winked one of her blazing red eyes, and gave her the finger-guns.

And because Cassandra and Crush had one night of history, she winked and finger-gunned back.

Standing a little ways away from them was former Young Justice member Bart _“Impulse” _Allen, and his wife… Rose _“Ravager” _Wilson.

That one had caused a stir some years back. Though they had kept their courtship a secret, they decided to go public three years ago when Bart proposed to Rose, upsetting a great deal of the superhero community. For Rose Wilson was the daughter of the late Slade Wilson, who had operated as a supervillain under the name _“Deathstroke.”_

Wally West, who had gone toe-to-toe with Deathstroke numerous times when he was Kid Flash back in his old Teen Titans days, did not speak to Bart for a year.

Next to the ex-teeny boppers were the two representatives from Themyscira.

Princess Diana was tall and resplendent in the traditional black Amazon mourning robes. The woman standing next to her, however, was of some interest to more than one person in the room.

To say that she hadn’t aged in the past fifteen years would quite literally be true. But to say that she hadn’t _changed _would be the most perfidious of statements. The woman standing next to Wonder Woman in identical black robes had rich tan skin, whereas it was once an alabaster white. Her arms were even more muscular than they had been when many in this foyer last saw her. And while her hair was still short and still red, it had lightened to a bright strawberry where it had once been a deep scarlet. It curled at the edges as though she had freshly stepped from swimming in the ocean.

The one standing next to Wonder Woman, holding her hand, was the former Batwoman Kate Kane.

The first awkward steps toward a relationship between Diana and Kate had been taken during the lead-up to the Battle of Founders Island fifteen years beforehand. But that relationship grew to a love so colossal and desperate that, two years after that, Diana offered Kate the opportunity to move to Themyscira. An opportunity that Kate readily accepted.

Queen Hippolyta of Themyscira, so pleased by her daughter Diana’s happiness, offered Kate rites both secret and mystical to make Kate Kane a full-blooded Amazon, with all the powers privileges contained therein. And Kate accepted this as well.

Diana of Themyscira and Kate Kane would never grow old and they would never die.

The last Cassandra heard, Kate was an admiral in the Themysciran navy.

Standing next to Kate was the similiarly immortal talking animal crime-solver Detective Chimp. Cassandra had no idea why he was there.

Also in the Why-the-Fuck-is-He-Here department? The Green Lantern Simon Baz. Dick and Simon had known each other (Dick knew everyone), but they didn’t come off as besties.

Simon’s presence also made the absence of others conspicuous. If Simon was here, where was his partner Jessica Cruz? Jessica would have a reason to be here, as her significant other was Starfire, who had been tight with Dick Grayson in oh-so-many more ways than one.

_And where the fuck was Starfire?_

But her questions melted away as she saw the man standing next to her. Broad-shouldered in a black jacket, his blue eyes pools of concern behind his glasses.

Conner.

Cassandra Cain and Conner Kent dated for six years before they became who they were meant to become, and drifted apart so slowly that he actually had to call her on the phone and ask if they had broken up. To which Cassandra had replied _“Yeah, I think we did. _”

It took them a year after their break-up to stop ending each conversation with _“I love you” _out of sheer force of habit. They still flitted into and out of each others’ lives, of course. He was Superman and she was Black Bat, how could they not? And every once in a while, if they were single, they fell into each others’ beds. Because they were adults, and they suffered the bouts of melancholy and boredom that were symptomatic of such a horrifying disease. 

And now here he was. And she didn’t need her ability to read body language to know what he was thinking right now.

_I could have stopped this._

She thought Conner should have known better by now. The vigilantes of Gotham City were a different breed of superhero. Known less by their exploits and prowess, and more for their pride. They could be at death’s door and still refuse help from anyone, and harshly upbraid those who gave that help unbidden.

It was the curse of everyone who wore the crest of the House of El on their chest to say _“We can take care of that for you.”_

And it was the curse of everyone who wore The Bat on their chests to say _“Not unless we ask you to.”_

Cassandra softly took Conner by the elbow, got up on her tiptoes, and kissed him on the cheek.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Have you talked to Cassandra Sandsmark lately?” Cassandra asked softly.

Conner furrowed his brow. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

Cassandra fought the urge to smirk “I need to talk to you later.”

She held his hand, rested her head on his shoulder, and looked at who everyone else was looking at.

Roy Harper.

The former Speedy, former Red Arrow, former original Teen Titan, and current Arsenal stood on the steps of the foyer overlooking everyone. He was wearing a black suit, and he had his shoulders bunched together, as though simply relaxing would tear the fabric like paper.

He wiped a lock of his messy red hair out of his eye, and said “I suck at things like this.”

Everyone was still and silent. Roy had the floor.

“It’s just, umm… There are some things we can only do with our friends,” Roy said. “We love our partners, we love our parents, we love our kids, but our _friends? _ The honest-to-God ones? They get to the places no one else can find, y’know? Like… We keep stuff from our families, from the people we share hearts and beds with. That’s not completely a bad thing. It means we can still feel shame. It means we care what you think about us. But our friends? It’s their job to see us at our worst, at our, uh… most vulnerable.”

Roy put his hands in the pockets of his blazer and sighed, looking down at his shoes, before looking back up and continuing.

“Last year,” Roy said, “me, Donna, and, uh… and Dick. We, uh… We drove my daughter Lian to the Star City airport. She was going off to college. She got a scholarship to Stanford. Film. She’s uh… She’s gonna make movies.”

Roy smiled in spite of himself before he remembered where he was, and wiped the smile off.

“We got her on the plane,” Roy said, “and I asked Dick if I could see him for a minute. We leave Donna at the gate, I take him into the men’s bathroom. I look him in the eye, and I just… started… _bawling.”_

He smiled as his eyes grew wet. There was a murmur of soft laughter among the congregation.

“It was, uh… It was because… Y’know, I’m an okay superhero. A somewhat decent husband. A reasonably passable man. But I can screw all of that up, Lord knows I can. I’m a, uh… I’m a recovering drug addict. I don’t have good relations with any of the father figures I ever had.”

He pointed at Donna Troy. “I even knocked up a supervillain while not knowing that the best girl in the world loved me from a few feet away.”

Cyborg put a hand on Donna Troy’s shoulder as she beamed at her husband. Another murmur of laughter.

“But, uh… I’m a great father. The whole Dad thing? I did that flawlessly, and I don’t mind saying it. I did the thing I was put on Earth to do. I led a child I was responsible for through nineteen years of life, and not once did she get into a mask and a Goddamn pair of tights.”

There was nothing polite or reserved about the laughter that followed.

“You know how rare that is?” Roy asked. “And, uh… And I couldn’t have done that without, every once in a while, someone coming in and telling me that I don’t suck as much as I thought I did.”

The smile came off Roy’s face, and he stood up straight.

“We can talk about how Dick Grayson was the first Robin. He led the Teen Titans. He was the general at the Battle of Founders Island. But the bravest, craziest thing that man ever did, was he saw a hopeless screw-up and said to himself _‘You see that guy? I’m… I’m gonna be the best friend he’s ever had.’”_

Roy fell silent. A tear fell from each eye. And Cassandra was reminded, as she often was, by something in a Shakespeare play. _“My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, and I must pause till it come back to me.”_

“He was my friend,” Roy Harper said, weakly, before he put his head down, and stepped off the stairs.

* * *

After Roy’s speech the assembled superheroes collapsed into remembrance and conversation. Some of these people hadn’t seen each other in years.

Off in a corner, Aaliyah Ramsey had to balance resentment with being positively starstruck. She had to alternate her reactions between scowls and open-mouthed stares.

Over near the entrance to one of Wayne Manor’s lounges, Carrie Kelley was talking to two identical teenagers that she learned by process of elimination were Superboy and Supergirl.

Lara Lane-Kent had a similar short mop of black hair to that of her brother. She was pretty… but Aaliyah couldn’t help but feel that she gave off a kind of Soccer Captain vibe. Sweet as a peach of you were in her circle, but she’d stuff your head in a toilet if you weren’t.

Her brother on the other hand…

_Hoo boy…_

Jon Lane-Kent, even from this far away, seemed enthusiastic, wholesome, a little on the dumb side.

And dear _Lord _was he pretty.

Jon Lane-Kent seemed like the kind of guy who would stand behind you and nod at everything you said.

He seemed like the kind of guy who would commit how you took your Subway sandwich to memory, and would actually smile when you got it.

He seemed like the kind of guy who would coordinate the air freshener in his car with the flavor of your lip gloss. ** And no one would tell him to do this!** _He’d _just think _you’d _think you’d think it was cute! And it _would _be cute! Because he’d _make _it cute!

And while Aaliyah was trying to figure out what other kinds of guy the almost unfairly cute Jon Lane-Kent was, she almost missed a female voice behind her.

“So,” the female voice said. “It’s your turn.”

Aaliyah whirled around and looked behind her.

A pretty woman of Asian descent with long white hair and a black eyepatch over her left eye was holding a glass of Scotch with three ice cubes in it. She smiled at Aaliyah.

“Hey,” the woman said. “Name’s Rose. Rose Wilson.”

“Hello,” Aaliyah said. “I’m--”

“I know who you are,” Rose Wilson said. “Granddaughter of the Demon.”

Aaliyah’s face fell. And it appeared that Rose had to fight off the urge to laugh.

“Don’t look so down,” Rose said. “It’s not like you’re the only one in here with supervillains for parents. You know who my dad was?”

“Who?”

“Deathstroke,” Rose said. “You heard of Deathstroke?”

Aaliyah shook her head.

“Super soldier,” Rose said. “Assassin. Prick.”

“Is he the one who, uh…”

Rose pointed at her eyepatch. “This? No. _I _did that.”

“Jesus,” Aaliyah said. “Why?”

“Because my dad was using drugs to brainwash me to be more like him,” Rose said. “So technically you were right the first time.”

Rose sighed, checked the lapels of her black jacket for dust, and looked back at Aaliyah.

“No matter how much good you do,” Rose said, “if your mom or your pop was the wrong girl or guy, these people will give you the stink-eye. Some’ll stop, some won’t, and every once in a while, you’ll try to find like-minded folks to stand back with and judge the goody two-shoes in their natural habitat.”

Rose affixed Aaliyah with her one eye and grinned. “Would you like to judge these people with me?”

Aaliyah looked out at the room, before looking back at Rose. “I would, actually.”

Rose and Aaliyah leaned against the wall and folded their arms.

“How did your relationship with your dad pan out?” Aaliyah asked.

“It didn’t,” Rose said. “Dad died.”

“Oh.”

“I wasn’t the one who killed him, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Rose said. “See, one of the things that made my dad a super soldier was that the experiments done on him sped his brain up. He could think and react nine times faster than the average person.”

Rose took a sip of her scotch. “Turns out,” she said, “that the human brain isn’t _supposed _to react nine times faster than normal. Deathstroke got into a fight with Pantha, and suddenly dropped dead in the middle. The joke was that Deathstroke’s cause of _death _was a _stroke.”_

Aaliyah didn’t say anything.

“Go ahead,” Rose said. “Laugh. It’s funny.”

“Not really.”

Rose just shrugged, and they both looked out at the room again.

“I didn’t know my parents were supervillains until just last night,” Aaliyah said.

“Damn.”

“I’m trying to make sense of the fact that the man who taught me to tie my shoes, helped me with my science homework, and took me to ballet class…”

Aaliyah scanned the room, before she found Kara Danvers and pointed at her.

“...tried to gut that lady one time.”

“I got a couple of silver linings for you,” Rose said. “You want ‘em?”

“Eh,” Aaliyah said. “Why not?”

“Yeah,” Rose said, “Black Manta may be your dad, Talia al Ghul may be your mom… but _Aquaman _is your half-brother.”

Aaliyah’s jaw dropped as someone threw a match on her brain, setting it ablaze.

“Not the _original _Aquaman,” Rose said. “Not the one who died here in Gotham before you were born. I’m talking about the _new _Aquaman. Jackson Hyde. Son of David Hyde and… and some Atlantean broad, I don’t know.”

“Hyde,” Aaliyah said. “I keep remembering my real last name is Hyde. Or al Ghul, or… And why did no one tell me Aquaman is my half-brother?”

Rose smiled. “Be fair, here. Were you actually gonna do anything with that information?”

The fire on her brain instantly went out, and Aaliyah sighed. “No, I guess not.”

Then they watched for a spell.

“Here’s what I don’t get,” Aaliyah finally said.

“Shoot,” said Rose.

“No one’s giving me stink-eye _yet. _ In fact, I think they’re actively _avoiding _giving me stink-eye, and congratulating themselves on their restraint.”

“You seem familiar with the phenomenon.”

“My dad’s black, my mom’s from the Middle-East, and I was born and raised in a Confederate state.”

“Point taken.”

“What I don’t get is…”

Aaliyah looked over the room before she pointed at Cassandra and Conner.

“...Cassandra Wayne has two supervillain parents, and everyone just seems peachy with her.”

Rose chuckled. “There are outside circumstances there.”

“Which are?”

“The first,” Rose said, “is that she wears The Bat. Bats are allowed to be wacky. And the _second _one?”

“Yeah?”

“See that handsome fellow she’s talking to?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That… is Superman.”

Aaliyah blinked in confusion, and wondered what it was in the Kryptonian water supply that made their men so Goddamn tasty-looking. “Isn’t Superman supposed to be younger? I thought he was just a little older than I am.”

“This particular version of Superman,” Rose said, “doesn’t age. He has his holographic mask on right now. When it’s off, he looks eighteen. Anyway, they dated for years and years. And legend has it that she had him slap the piss out of both her dad _and _her mom.”

Aaliyah had to fight off chuckles. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Rose said. “If you call in a Super to do that, and they actually do it for you? Then you gotta be on the up and up.”

As Aaliyah nodded at that, a rather short gentleman with freckles and wild brown hair walked up to them.

“Rosie?” he asked.

Rose smirked. “Yeah, babe?”

“I think me, Jinny, and a couple of the others are gonna go get something to eat when this is all over.”

“Is Wally gonna be there?”

This fellow seemed to sigh and grow a couple of inches at the same time. “I really don’t care if Wally’s there or not. He’ll be nice.”

The smirk on Rose’s face turned into a full-blown smile.

“Look at you,” Rose said. “All Billy Big-Dick. That’s your style right there.”

The man smiled and blushed. “Top off your drink?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Rose said. “But I was wondering if you could help me with something.”

“Yeah?”

Rose pointed to her left cheekbone, just below her eyepatch.

“I got this twinge right here,” she said. “Maybe you could…”

The man leaned in, and planted a quick kiss where she pointed.

“Better?” the man asked.

“Much,” said Rose.

Only now did this fellow seem to notice Aaliyah.

“Oops,” he said. “My mind goes faster than light, and I forget my manners. I’m Bart.”

“Aaliyah,” she said as they shook hands.

Both Aaliyah and Rose watched Bart Allen go.

“And there’s another silver lining,” Rose said. “If you can call it that. These people are embarrassingly goody-goody. Enough sticks up their asses for all the Spinal Tap drummers. But…”

Rose held up her left hand. The one that wasn’t holding her drink. The one with the wedding ring on it.

“...they’ll get ya,” Rose said. “Every fucking time, they’ll get ya.”

As Aaliyah reckoned with what this might mean, she heard her name called.

“Aaliyah!” Carrie said on the other end of the room. “Come over here and meet the Superkids.”

Lara Lane-Kent huffed. “Please don’t call us the Superkids.”

Rose Wilson laughed. Aaliyah turned to look at her.

_“Shit, _girl,” she said. “That was _fast.”_

* * *

In the main courtyard, amidst all the rental cars, Jason Todd sat alone in the Bentley, reading his book.

The record must state at this juncture that it was _A Confederacy of Dunces _by John Kennedy Toole; a book that Jason had tried to get into in years past, but made a special point to finish now.

What was going on in that house held nothing interesting for him. Jason Todd’s earliest memories of Dick Grayson were of his shock and outrage that Bruce Wayne had replaced him as Robin. And Dick did not attempt to apologize, mend fences, or anything of that nature for the rest of the time that Jason knew him.

He wasn’t happy Dick was dead. He wasn’t sad, either. It was just a thing that happened.

And Jason didn’t want to answer questions either. Neither about the fact that he was a reconstruction of the deceased Jason Todd made from Fifth Dimensional energy, nor about the sure-to-be-obvious fact that Jason would have refused to speak to the man of the house.

Life was too fucking short.

Jason’s eyes fell down to his book, before they zipped back up again to look out the windshield.

Two women were off a few yards away, near the fountain, seemingly arguing with each other.

One of them was easy to identify. It was the six-and-a-half foot tall alien princess Starfire. Which meant that the woman with dark skin and brown hair to whom she spoke must have been the Green Lantern Jessica Cruz.

Well, that and the big green ring on the middle finger of her right hand.

Starfire was wearing a simple sleeveless black dress that covered up her cleavage and came down to her knees. This was the most clothes that he had ever seen Starfire wear.

She was pacing back and forth as Jessica held the body language of someone all too familiar with the emotional _durm und strang _of the woman to whom she spoke.

_Whatever, _Jason thought. _ Not my problem._

He went back to his book… only to immediately be disturbed again by the passenger’s side door opening.

In stepped a man not a day over thirty with light brown hair wearing a tuxedo.

Cullen Row sat down in the seat, shut the door behind him, sighed, and looked at Jason.

“I’m bored,” Cullen said. “Entertain me.”

* * *

In one of the ancillary living rooms on the ground floor, where people filed in and filed out, Harper Row shared a couch with Jinny Hex.

And Wonder Woman and Kate Kane stood above them.

Diana’s soulful blue eyes bored into Harper as she was telling her something important, which always made Harper feel... _funny._

“In the Hall of Knowledge,” Diana said, “on Themyscira’s eastern shores, there are likenesses in fresco upon the walls of the great minds and brilliant souls that have enriched the lives of the Amazons. Through politics, through warfare, through philosophy, through science, through art. And in the rear chamber… is a likeness of _Bluebird. _ Is a likeness… of _Harper Row. _”

Harper nodded, and said “‘Kay.”

“Because,” Diana said, “you have brought _Dungeons & Dragons _to the Amazons.”

Jinny tilted her cowboy hat back, and asked “That’s all it takes huh? To get a paintin’ on Paradise Island?”

“It is no frivolous matter,” Diana said. “It is a war game. It is a simulation that teaches resource management, preparedness, improvisation. It will bring the Themysciran military into a new age.”

“That and the Westpoint tactics from your admiral,” Kate said. “Can’t forget that.”

A deep, raspy voice sounded from behind them. “That admiral got time to hang out with her friends?”

They all looked to the voice. There, standing three-and-a-half feet high, wearing a deerstalker cap and a child’s suit jacket, was Detective Chimp.

“Hey, Kate,” he said.

Kate smiled, bent down, and offered him her hand. “Yo yo, Bobo.”

They shook, before she stood up straight again and looked at Diana.

“Are you going to ask your princess for permission to take your leave?” Diana asked.

“No,” said Kate. “You’re going to let your American girlfriend do whatever the hell she wants.”

Diana smiled, and kissed Kate on the lips.

“Love is too small a word for you,” Diana said.

“Damn,” Kate said, looking flushed. “Now I gotta change these robes. Back in a few.”

“Have fun.”

“Always do. Have some yourself while you’re at it.”

Kate and Detective Chimp walked out, past Cassandra Wayne and Conner Kent, who were standing near the doorway.

Diana looked back at Harper and Jinny.

“The two of ya are adorable,” Jinny said. “Like baby ducks.”

“Thank you,” Diana said. “Forgive me, I must see how Clark is doing. It was a pleasure to see you both again.”

“Nice seeing you too,” Harper said.

And now it was Diana’s turn to leave past Cassandra and Conner.

“Guy Gardner,” Jinny said, “once told me that all Amazons do on Themyscira is have either a horse or another Amazons head between their legs at all times. Now, Guy Gardner’s a pig, but even in terms like that? It don’t sound too bad.”

“No,” Harper said. “It doesn’t… Christ, Guy Gardner. Remember when he got a Youtube channel because he didn’t like _The Last Jedi?”_

“I been tryin’ to forget,” Jinny said. “Thanks for remindin’ me, Deputy.”

Which was what Jinny called her ever since she became deputy mayor of Gotham City.

Jinny looked at Harper, smiled, and looked away again.

“What?” Harper asked.

“Somethin’ troublin’ ya?”

“You mean besides the obvious?” Harper asked. “Besides that this Arkham Knight character killed Dick? That Ra’s al Ghul is in town trying to kill his granddaughter? That it took all the tricks I had to avoid my security detail to get here today? How I’m gonna have to _keep _avoiding them because it’s been agreed upon that all the members of the Batfamily have to bunker up here at Wayne Manor until this whole thing blows over? Or how about how that’s gonna be even harder to do now that Mayor Yeoh wants to see me after I get done here tonight? Think any of those might be giving me grief right about now?”

“Nah,” Jinny said. “Those you can handle.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Jinny’s eyebrows rose, her green eyes appraising her. A smirk slowly formed on her thin lips. Harper always thought Jinny was cute, but it was one of those things that she could never do anything with. She was either going out with Tim, or pregnant, or retired.

_Jesus, _Harper thought, _it’s been so long…_

“What’s troublin’ ya,” Jinny said, “is that every once in a while… I catch ya lookin’ at those knuckles of yours.”

Harper, naturally, looked at her knuckles. They were scraped from beating the piss out of three of the Arkham Knight’s goons the night before.

“I got a theory,” Jinny said, “if you wanna hear it.”

“By all means. Theorize away.”

“I think,” Jinny said, “you _miss _alla this. You miss droppin’ fools. You miss savin’ the day. You miss the mask.”

Now that it had been spoken aloud, Harper knew it was true. But Jinny didn’t have to just… _say _it, though.

“I have a kid,” Harper said.

“Lots of the folk round here got kids,” Jinny said. “I ain’t a gamblin’ girl, but would that I was, I’d put money on either you bein’ Bluebird again before this Arkham Knight thing blows over, or you bein’ Bluebird again once little Mattie-Ann turns eighteen.”

“When Mattie-Ann turns eighteen, I’ll--”

** _“WHAT?”_ **

The scream was booming. Harper and Jinny turned toward its direction.

The one who had screamed was Conner Kent. And he looked deeply shocked, and almost hurt.

Cassandra looked around, before taking him by the hand and attempting to lead him out of the room…

...only to almost pull her shoulder out of joint and fall on the floor, because Conner was half-Kryptonian, and they won’t move if they don’t want to.

“Conner,” Cassandra said in a high whisper. “Can we talk about it somewhere else?”

Conner Kent shook his head, sighed, and walked out with Cassandra.

_Those two have always been weird, _Harper thought.

“When Mattie-Ann turns eighteen,” Harper said, finally trying to finish her thought, “I’ll be forty-two.”

“Ain’t that old,” Jinny said. “Not in the long scheme. And you’ll have the benefit of having spent almost twenty years of not getting the piss beat out of ya on a nightly basis.”

Harper was about to argue with this, weak though that argument may have been, when something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye.

A man in his late twenties in a black suit and a deep red shirt entered the room. He was just sight-seeing. He was tall and well-built, with a square jaw, perfectly maintained black hair, light blue eyes. He was… _wow, _he was…

“See somethin’ ya like, there, Deputy?” Jinny asked with a mischievous grin.

“Jinny,” Harper said, “if that man spray-farted in my Cheerios, I’d _thank _him.”

Jinny laughed… a little too loud.

“It’s not that funny,” Harper said.

“You… you know who that is?” Jinny asked, trying to keep her voice quiet and attempting to calm herself at the same time.

“No,’ Harper said. “Who?”

“That… That’s _Billy Batson.”_

Harper’s heart stopped. The synapses in her brain started screaming and leaving the rest of her gray matter as though they were ghosts rising from a cold grave.

And then came the weird nausea.

“Wasn’t um… Wasn’t Billy Batson twelve years old, like, _five minutes ago?”_

“If’n by five minutes ya mean fifteen years, then yeah,” Jinny said, once again succumbing to giggles. _“Ya cradle-robbin’ hussy!”_

* * *

“I put out those fires in the Amazon,” Kara Danvers said.

“Uh-huh,” said Crush.

The former Supergirl and current Superwoman should not, by all accounts, have been best friends with the half-Czarnian hellraiser.

Maybe that was what made them best friends after all.

They were standing near the door of the foyer. Crush herself was leaning against the wall, casting the occasional glances out through the small side windows. Kara wondered what Crush was looking at out there, but she hadn’t finished her thought yet.

“Weirdest thing, though,” Kara said. “Usually when there’s a deforestation event in the Amazon, Poison Ivy replants the trees. But there hasn’t been word of her.”

Crush squinted. “Poison Ivy’s in the Amazon?”

“Yeah,” Kara said. “She split from Gotham City a few years back. Rumor mill had it at the time that Harley Quinn had to call her therapy sessions with Bruce to a halt while she got herself under control. Ivy wouldn’t stay in Gotham, and she wouldn’t take Harley to Brazil with her.”

“Hmmm,” Crush said, seemingly disinterested, still looking through the side windows.

“Is there a Victoria’s Secret show out front?” Kara asked. “Is that what has you so curious?”

Crush looked at Kara and said “Come over here.”

She did. She stood next to Crush, and looked out.

In the main courtyard, Princess Koriand’r of Tamaran and the Green Lantern Jessica Cruz were seemingly arguing.

Kara knew she had the option of listening in… but that just seemed rude.

“See,” Crush said, “I was hoping that Starfire would be wearing her ceremonial black mourning bikini today. But no, she’s dressed like a normal person. Which means I won’t be having _any _fun at this shindig.”

Kara was about to say something…

...when she saw a lesion in reality open a few feet away from Jessica and Starfire.

A lesion shaped like a bird.

Out stepped a woman wearing what looked like a black one piece swimsuit, black thigh-high boots, and a black cape and hood. Her face was pale and angular.

“Holy shit,” Crush said. “It’s Raven.”

Kara watched Rachel _“Raven” _Roth converse with Jessica and Starfire as the lesion in reality closed behind her… and she noticed that during the conversation, Starfire seemed to ease up with her posture, and the look of agitation on her face seemed to give way to a dreamy stare.

And with that, the three women made their way to the front door.

“Gang way,” Crush said. “Here they come.”

The three women entered the foyer, and closed the door behind them.

“Isn’t there usually a butler that opens doors here?” Jessica asked.

“We can’t find him,” Kara said. “How are you?”

“Considering?” Jessica asked.

“Kara,” Starfire said. “Xiomara. So good to see the both of you.”

Starfire dutifully and lightly hugged the both of them. Kara figured this made Crush’s day, as the beautiful alien princess pressed herself against her. Kara knew how Crush operated.

“I wish to find Victor and Donna,” Stargire said. “If you will excuse us.”

“Please,” Kara said. “Go right ahead.”

Starfire and Jessica made their way to the interior of the house with Raven (who hadn’t said a word) a few paces behind them.

Kara and Crush spent a few seconds in silence, before Kara aired her thought.

“Something about that seem off to you?” she asked.

Crush nodded. “Starfire’s a zombie today. Even outside the circumstances of the death of her ex-boo.”

“Think Rachel has something to do with it?”

Crush looked at Kara, her bemused red eyes set in her ivory face.

“You think Raven’s evil this week?”

* * *

Six-hundred yards away from Wayne Manor, on the rear grounds, there sat the Wayne Family Mausoleum.

Outside the Wayne Family Mausoleum, there was a stone bench.

And upon this stone bench sat Barbara Gordon.

She needed to be away from everyone right now.

Everyone except the man with whom she was sharing the bench.

A few feet away from her, keeping a respectful distance, was the Green Lantern Simon Baz.

She chanced a glance at him. Handsome. Dark tan skin beneath a closely shaved head of black hair. His cheeks smooth, but the stubble of a black goatee growing around his mouth. White shirt and a loosened black tie beneath a black leather jacket.

And then she looked away again, and they both shared a moment of silence.

“I’d pay good money to know what you’re thinking right now,” Simon said.

Barbara rubbed her eyes beneath her yellow-tinted eyeglasses, and let her hands rest on her black slacks.

“I’m fine,” Barbara said.

Simon nodded.

“I mean I’m _not _fine,” Barbara said. “This is terrible. But… I was prepared. You can’t work out of Gotham without being prepared for something like this.”

Barbara sighed, and folded her arms.

“I hadn’t seen him in six years,” Barbara said. “He was out of sight and out of mind, horrible as it seems to say. More than the obvious, though? There are two things fucking with me right now. The first one is easy to admit. The second one? Not so much.”

“Okay,” Simon said. “I’m here for both.”

His dark brown eyes were wide open and accommodating. She gave him a brief smile before, before she looked off into space again.

“The first thing,” Barbara said, “is that Bruce is going to want Dick to be buried in this mausoleum behind us. Dick’s wife Bea will want him buried in Bludhaven I’m gonna be asked to pick a side, and for the life of me, I don’t know which one to take. Dick was born in Gotham, but he spent more time in Bludhaven than he ever did here. So there’s that.”

“And the second thing?” Simon asked. “The embarrassing thing?”

Barbara stared at her feet. “And the second thing,” Barbara said, “is that… I lost my virginity to Dick Grayson.”

She chanced another glance at Simon. His expression hadn’t changed. And Barbara took great comfort in that.

“I mean not the actual fact, that I… I’m not embarrassed by that. It’s just… You have no idea how much stock and legend is placed on a teenage girl’s virginity,” Barbara said. “From everyone. From family members and total strangers. It’s more of a defining moment for a girl than it is a boy. A boy can pop his cherry in a brothel with sticky floors and people will actually cheer him for it. But for a girl? Everything has to be just so. Rites have to be observed. A specific number of candles have to be lit. There will be hell to pay if there isn’t.”

“And?” Simon asked.

“And,” Barbara said, “I lost my virginity to Dick Grayson… and now… there are no witnesses. Big moment in my life, and I’m the only one who remembers it. It sounds horrible to say. It shouldn’t be fucking with me… But it is _fucking _with me.”

She looked at Simon again. And still, his expression hadn’t changed.

“No judgment?” Barbara asked.

“None,” said Simon.

“Not even a little?”

“Nope.”

“C’mon, there’s gotta be _some _judgment.”

“My judgment crop didn’t yield dick,” Simon said. “Sorry.”

Barbara smiled. “Simon Baz of Earth, you have shown great willpower.”

Simon smiled back. As he did, Barbara pondered (and not for the first time) the coincidence that Simon’s partner Jessica was dating Starfire… while Simon himself had been dating Barbara for a year.

_Sleep with Dick Grayson, _Barbara thought, _and one of the sexier Green Lanterns will go down on you in eight-to-ten business years._

She wished there was a legend of how Simon and Barbara hooked up. Some bottomless myth like Batgirl and Robin falling in with each other. But the plain fact was that last fall, Simon was in Gotham on Justice League business. He asked her out, and she said yes.

They’d kept their relationship a secret because…

“You know now’s not the time,” Barbara said. “Not yet. Not right after this. What with…”

“I know,” Simon said. “But when?”

“Give it, uh… Give it a month or two.”

Simon nodded. He didn’t look angry or sad, but that was because Barbara knew he wasn’t.

“You know why, right?” Barbara asked.

“Because of what people will say.”

“Not people,” Barbara said. “The women.”

“The women?”

“Right.”

“Not the men?”

“No,” Barbara said. “You’ll be congratulated. But me? I’ll get a host of awful questions.”

“Okay,” Simon said. “Now, when you say _‘the women,’ _do you really just mean…”

“Dinah and Helena,” Barbara said. _ “And _Zinda.”

“That’s what I thought,” Simon said. “But… hypothetically… what would these questions be?”

Barbara sighed. “First, you don’t know Dinah and Helena like I do. They are just… _filthy. _ But… they will ask me… hypothetically… whether or not you use the ring.”

Simon blinked and pondered. _ “‘Use the ring?’”_

“In bed,” Barbara said, feeling the heat rush to her cheeks.

Simon nodded. “Well… I don’t.”

“I know.”

“But now that the idea’s in my head...”

Barbara rolled her eyes, and gave Simon a playful swat on the shoulder.

“Shit,” Simon said. “And here I was, thinking you didn’t want to tell anyone because your dad would be pissed you’re dating a Muslim.”

Barbara laughed.

Because she thought it was funny.

“Simon,” Barbara said once she chased the giggles away. “You’re a Green Lantern. Dad wouldn’t be pissed I’m dating a Muslim. He’d be thrilled I’m dating a cop.”

Simon Baz flashed his million dollar smile, and looked back out onto the grounds.

Barbara leaned over and gave him a swift kiss on the cheek, before she joined him.

* * *

On the eastern grounds of Wayne Manor, leaning on the wall next to the doorway, Kate Kane and Detective Chimp stood and surveyed the wilderness around them.

Detective Chimp was smoking a cigar, and Kate was watching him do it.

“Themyscira get old yet?” Detective Chimp asked.

Kate folded her tanned, brawny arms. “Dude,” she said, “I live on a tropical island full of tall buff-as-fuck women who wear togas and go skinny-dipping in hot springs. I share a bed with the most beautiful woman on Earth, and because it’s Wonder Woman, that’s not an opinion; that can actually be backed up by science. Every morning and every night she tells me she loves me. And because she’s Wonder Woman, I know she means it. And I love her back. And that will never… _ever… _get old.”

“I thought as much,” Detective Chimp said. “But don’t tell me there ain’t nothin’ you miss about the good ol’ US of A.”

“A few things,” Kate said. “After we get done here, Diana wants to take me to D'Artagnan's over on the East End.”

“Best pizza in Gotham.”

“Fuckin’ A right,” said Kate. “Thing is, though, we’re gonna have to get separate pies. She gets jalapenos and mushrooms on hers.”

“Ugh.”

“It’s disgusting, I know.”

“And yours?

_“Beef,” _Kate said. _ “Extra. _ That’s the thing about Themyscira. No meat. And every few years or so when I get back here, I gotta get my fill in.”

“Amazons from the mainland have their privileges when it comes to the whole meat thing?” Detective Chimp asked.

“That they do,” said Kate. “I haven’t been back here in… five years. Dad’s funeral.”

“What else do you miss?”

Kate looked at Detective Chimp… or more particularly, what he was holding.

“I need you to do me a favor, Bobo.”

“Yeah?”

“What I need you to do,” Kate said, “is take a drag off that cigar… and blow it in my face.”

Detective Chimp looked at his cigar, and blinked. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

Detective Chimp took a drag. Kate leaned down. And he blew a plume of cigar smoke right across her nose.

Kate inhaled, stood up straight, and said “Damn. That… _That _takes me back.”

“You used to smoke cigars?” he asked.

She did. Every poker night whens he went to Westpoint. She stopped when she was expelled. Not out of any concern for her health, but because there was no longer a poker night.

But looking at Detective Chimp, his eyes curious and his lips done up in a frown, one thought came to Kate’s mind.

_I gotta fuck with him. He’s left me no choice._

Kate smirked, and said “Bitch, I’ve done _heroin.”_

Detective Chimp’s jaw dropped. _ “Really?”_

Kate raised her eyebrows and smiled.

“That look doesn’t answer my question,” Detective Chimp said. “You shoot smack, or not?”

* * *

“So there’s a cleaning staff?” Jason asked.

“Yup,” said Cullen.

Jason Todd and Cullen Row, who had only seen each other briefly through the times of their respective employ to two separate generations of the Wayne family, had been speaking for half an hour in the Bentley.

Jason had to hand it to him. He saw Raven emerge from a bird-shaped portal fifteen minutes ago, and he had barely been impressed.

“They must be new,” Jason said. “I was Robin for a year, hung out around this house all the time, and I never saw anyone except for Alfred.”

“That’s the mark of a good Dobby,” Cullen said. “He keeps the house elves out of sight. They’ve _always _been there.”

“So you been fucking around here since you were sixteen?”

“Right.”

“And you just decided, _‘Hey, I want to be the butler for this house?’”_

“Being the butler of Wayne Manor,” Cullen said, “is like being God in the universe. Present everywhere, but visible nowhere.”

“That all of it?”

“Of course, that’s not all of it,” Cullen said. “Being the Wayne butler means I actually _live _here. Selina and Bruce would be lost without me. _Lost! _”

“Dude was _Batman,” _Jason said. “As much as I don’t like saying nice things about the guy, he ain’t gonna be too lost for too long.”

“He’s upstairs in his room right now,” Cullen said, “with over thirty people down on the ground floor. Yeah, he’s grieving, but… Y’know, Barbara’s grieving too, but at least she knows how to act in front of people.”

Jason blinked.

“Wait,” he said, “so he’s up in the master bedroom right now?”

“Yeah.”

“Not talking to anyone?”

“That is what I said.”

Jason leaned back in the driver’s seat, connecting the dots between Bruce, Cass, Ra’s al Ghul, the Arkham Knight… and himself.

“Fuck,” Jason said, weariness in his voice, before he got out of the car.

The gravel of the courtyard crunched under Jason’s black Italian shoes as he made his way to the front door, opened it, entered the foyer, and slammed the heavy oak door behind him…

...and catching the attention of all of the dozens of people in the foyer, who ground their conversations to a halt when they saw him.

“Jason?” Wally West asked in complete shock.

“Shut the fuck up, Wally,” Jason said. “I didn’t like you back in the day, and you don’t look likeable now.”

Wally actually looked hurt by this. Must not have been every day that people came back from the dead and told him how much he sucked.

Jason scanned the room full of off-hours capes, Amazons, Kryptonians, and… _Holy shit, a monkey in a Sherlock Holmes hat!_

“So Bruce is up in his room?” Jason asked.

“He’s grieving,” Cassandra Wayne said.

“Uh-huh,” said Jason. “And you all… just… let him stay up there?”

No one said anything. If Jason had to lay down dollars, he’d say they were all embarrassed.

Jason groaned, rubbed his face, and said “Good intentions are one thing, but, uh… You’re all just fucking amateurs.”

And with that, Jason walked up the stairs of the foyer.

The door of the master bedroom was locked when he tried to open it.

“Jesus,” Jason said to himself, before he put his face next to the door and bellowed at the top of his lungs **“OPEN UP, YOU COCK!”**

A few seconds later, a seemingly shrunken and very bearded (which was new to Jason) Bruce Wayne opened the door.

Jason walked right past him into the bedroom… which seemed to have gotten smaller since the last time he was here… and Bruce shut the door.

Bruce opened his mouth. He was going to have the first word.

_Not on my watch…_

Jason cut him off.

“You…” Jason said, “are a complete asshole.”

Bruce shut his mouth.

“There is nothing about you that is even remotely likeable,” Jason continued. “You’re about as warm and forthcoming as a brick wall. And yeah, you’ve surrounded yourself with otherwise intelligent people who say they love you, but it’s not my problem that they don’t know the difference between love and Stockholm Syndrome. You are the patron saint of dickishness, and the fact that you’ll be remembered as a hero is the only argument I need that there is no God.”

Bruce just blinked. His expression didn’t change.

Jason stepped forward. “Which is why if Dick Grayson getting killed was your fault, I’d have told you. I’d have _sang _it at you. I’d have composed a limerick about it and recited it to you while wearing a sequined thong and tap shoes. Because _that _is how much I fucking hate you.”

Bruce just stood there, stock still.

“Dick died last night,” Jason said. “He was thirty-eight. He was older than you were when you took him in. He was older than you were when you took _me _in. Older than you were when you made Tim Robin. And he was older than Cass was when Carrie signed up. And as much as I’d like to blame you for everything, that wouldn’t be honest. The man was pushing forty. He was responsible for his own actions, and his actions took him to the wrong fucking place at the wrong fucking time… Now your head is supposed to be in the game. Not up your ass. Act like it.”

Jason turned and tried to walk away, when Bruce finally spoke up.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Jason sized Bruce up.

_He’s trying to draw me in. Even at this low point, he’s trying to manipulate me._

_Eh, to Hell with it…_

“A couple of years ago,” Jason said, “In a fit of… I don’t know what, I drove up here to this house. I made my way over the wall, past the defenses, and I snuck into the mausoleum. Your parents are buried there. Alfred’s buried there. There’s even a plate for that awful little shit Damian, because your ego is so vast that everything with the last name Wayne needs its own shrine no matter how bad it was. And when you die, Bruce, your body is gonna go in the lot above mine. Above the original Jason Todd. You wanna know the moral of this story?”

Bruce didn’t say anything.

“The moral,” Jason said, “is that I can’t piss on your grave without getting it on my own. Now apply the metaphor broadly. Do you really think Ra’s al Ghul and the Arkham Knight are gonna go easy on me because I was a nonviolent conscientious objector who just drove your daughter around? If you don’t quit fucking around, you’re gonna get me killed. _ Again. _ And I wasn’t in favor of it the first time. Can you _do _that, Bruce? You waste of a fucking beard, is that _possible _for you?”

Jason looked Bruce up and down again before turning for a second time to leave.

“Jason?”

_Fuuuuuuuuuck…_

He turned around again to look at Bruce.

His expression had finally changed. A little. There seemed to be a glassiness about his eyes. If Jason thought Bruce was capable of such a thing, he’d have almost said it was warmth.

“This is the first conversation we’ve had in fifteen years,” Bruce said. “It was abusive, and… _needlessly _profane. But even taking that into account… it… it’s really nice to see you again.”

After hearing this Jason Todd (in true After School Special fashion) learned something.

He could heap as much invective upon Bruce Wayne as he damn well pleased, and Bruce would still break out the sad eyes and try to reach him. Because he knew he had done wrong, and he was desperate for forgiveness.

All in all, this was an admirable quality to have, if it was sincere. And by all accounts...

So why did Jason feel like he was going to be sick?

“Oh, eat shit,” Jason said, before opening the door and stepping into the hallway…

...right in front of Cassandra, Selina, and Cullen.

The two women flanked the butler as he held out a glass of champagne.

“Aperitif, sir?” Cullen asked.

The breath left Jason’s body as a horrifying fact became known to him.

_I am in the shit, now._

_And in the shit I must stay. I can cry and rage, but I broke the seal. I walked through the door of this house. Even in self-interest, it still counts. It just ain’t fair._

Jason sighed, took the glass of champagne, and downed half of it in one gulp. He looked at Selina.

“I still remember the time you kidnapped me.”

“So do I,” Selina said. “Barrel of laughs, wasn’t it?”

Jason sighed again.

His fit of pique had once again brought him into the full orbit of the Bat network. _ La familia. _ But even so, he still wasn’t going to speak to Bruce.

Not unless it was important.

Or… y’know… _really _funny.

* * *

Tim Drake had taken it upon himself to point out everyone to Violet Paige, and introduce her to the ones with whom she might get along.

So yeah, that just meant Kate, Detective Chimp, and the all-loving Clark Kent. Christ, even Wonder Woman had her limits.

Violet Paige, leaning against a wall, tugged at her black turtleneck and raised her glass of cognac up to her bruised lips.

Tim was drinking Diet Coke.

“So Bruce adopted Cass?” Violet asked.

“Yeah.”

“But not the, uh… not the dearly departed Dick Grayson?”

“No,” Tim said. “Dick also lost his parents when he was eight. Still remembered them. I think Dick just didn’t want to front on his mom like that. The more you knew Dick Grayson, the more you knew that even in theory, thirty years past the point of her own demise, dude was a momma’s boy. He spent his whole life surrounding himself with beautiful women that had infinite patience… Someone should write a paper on that.”

“Annnnnd… He didn’t adopt Jason?” Violet asked. “Who just got a lot more entertaining a few minutes ago?”

“Jason was only Robin for a year,” Tim said. “I’m sure the adoption thing would have come up, but they just didn’t have the time.”

“And he didn’t adopt _you?”_

Tim knew this was an honest question. But he knew Violet would respect him more if he messed with her just a little bit.

Why he cared about Violet’s respect, though, he had no idea.

He hardened his face, drew his eyebrows down, and said “No.”

Violet nodded. “There a story there?”

Tim took a sip of his soda and gave himself the presence of a craggy old sea captain who’d lost his boat and all his men when the kraken hit.

With sorrow in his eyes, with gravel in his voice, he looked off into the middle distance and intoned…

“Bruce didn’t adopt me… because both my parents are still alive.”

Violet snorted and smiled. “Prick.”

“Yup,” said Tim, allowing himself a smirk. It had been an abysmally shitty couple of days, he earned it.

“Congratulations,” Violet said. “Congratulations on both your parents being alive.”

There was a snatch of something in his memory. Something about Violet’s dad.

“I heard,” Tim said, “that your dad died in a hunting accident.”

It was a forward thing to say. But they were at an informal wake. Death was all around them.

“Wasn’t a hunting accident,” Violet said.

Tim wanted to say that he was an open ear if she needed one… but he also guessed that Violet was so confrontational that she’d tell him about it whether he wanted her to or not.

“We were at a hunting lodge,” Violet said. “That much is true. I was eleven years old. I hear him talking to his friend on the phone in the other room. And what he was saying… sounded an awful lot like he was gonna sell me to one of his business buddies for some extra cash. Y’know… for all the bad reasons you’re _thinking _of when you hear the concept of a man selling a little girl to another man.”

Tim felt his stomach turn, felt the corners of his mouth fall into an angry frown.

“Dad comes looking for me,” Violet said. “And he finds me… holding his hunting rifle.”

Tim did the math. “And you shot him?”

“No,” Violet said. “He tried to explain himself. Said I heard it all wrong. He wasn’t gonna turn _me _out to his kiddie-diddling buddies. He was gonna turn out my _mom. _ And because mom had early onset dementia, she’d have no idea what was going on. That it was a victimless crime.”

Violet downed her cognac, shuddered, and said _“Then _I shot him.”

Tim nodded.

“My asshole brother Victor got the lion’s share of the Paige family’s money until I turned eighteen,” Violet said, “in which I got a shitload of cash in a trust fund. _Billions. _ But I was eleven, so he had me sent to Gather House. Boarding school on the outside, scientific testing ground and assassin school on the inside.”

“That where you got your strength implants?”

“Made me the woman I am today,” Violet said.

Tim nodded yet again.

“Let’s hear it,” Violet said.

“Hear what?”

“The _‘How Dare You?’” _Violet said. “Self-righteous capes, current and former, are big on the _‘How Dare You?’ _ So come on. Out with it.”

Time was, Violet’s story would have bothered Tim.

But now?”

“Nah,” Tim said. “You don’t get one.”

Violet stared at him, but she didn’t say anything.

“Not being happy that someone had to die,” Tim said, “and not being sad that that one particular person got shot are two thoughts I can hold in my head at the same time. You ask me if I approve, and I’m gonna say I don’t strictly, but people have gotten shot to death for far worse reasons.”

Tim pointed at his surroundings, and said “Case in point.”

“Wow,” Violet said. “I… Wow. You sure they’re not gonna kick you out of this house? You sure you don’t have to turn in your Former Robin Decoder Ring?”

“Half of these quote-unquote _‘self-righteous capes _’ have bodies on them too,” Tim said. “The only thing that separates you from them is that you’re proud of it. You may be special, Violet, but you’re not special in that one specific way.”

Violet’s voice was doused in sarcasm when she said _“Aww, _you think I’m _special?”_

_“Everyone’s _special.”

Violet actually giggled.

“I gotta say,” Violet said, “I wouldn’t have picked the hard-boiled private eye as the kind of Kumbaya motherfucker who would say shit like _‘Everyone’s special.’”_

“I’m the proud father of a nine-year-old girl,” Tim said. “She has to hear stuff like that now and again.”

* * *

Jason was on his second glass of champagne.

No one else was drinking it.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d have sworn that Selina or Cassandra had saved a bottle for the off-chance that Jason entered this house again.

In any event, he was glad he ate before he got here.

He and Cullen Row were at the side windows near the front door, where Kara and Crush had been minutes before.

Cullen called out.

“Hey,” he said. “Hey, Cyborg.”

Cyborg, who had been talking with Starfire and Jessica Cruz (with Raven a few feet away eyeing the two women intently), stopped talking and looked at Cullen.

“What?” he asked.

“You got my twenty bucks?”

Cyborg sighed. “Dude, it’s a pre-season game, I still don’t see why I should honor that bet.”

“Because it’s a bet _you made,” _Cullen said. “And it serves you right betting against Detroit. That’s your hometown.”

“I wasn’t betting _against _Detroit,” Cyborg said, “I was betting _on _the Cowboys. Double-or-nothing me at the Super Bowl, the Cowboys are due.”

“And Jesus is coming back any minute,” Cullen said. “Either way… You still owe me twenty bucks.”

Cyborg sighed again. “Next time I’m in Gotham.” Then he walked off.

“I made a bet with him on a game,” Cullen said.

“I’ve gathered that,” said Jason.

“I may or may not have yelled _‘Boo-Ya!’ _when I won.”

Jason smiled, and took another sip of his drink.

“What?” Cullen asked.

Jason shrugged and raised his glass to him.

_“Salud,” _he said. “Rare is the twink who knows his football.”

Cullen rolled his eyes. “First of all, I’m thirty-one. My twink days ended at twenty-seven, because _everyone’s _twink days end at twenty-seven. Second of all, you don’t watch muscular men in obscenely tight tights try to violently stop each other from walking across some grass as long as I have without, y’know, _actually learning the rules of American football… _And I gotta tell you, the Dallas Cowboys haven’t been the same since Jerry Jones started sharing that feces pit with The Joker in Hell.”

Jason smiled. Because he appreciated that.

Something apparently caught Cullen’s eye. He looked out the side window and squinted. Jason decided to have a looksy himself.

A cab had pulled up at the open gates of Wayne Manor. Out stepped a woman with a brunette ponytail and a black pea coat, before the cab drove off.

Jason couldn’t recognize her, couldn’t tell much about her, but…

“Should, uh… Should we start moving people out of the foyer?” Jason asked. “Y’know, the Kryptonians? The Amazons? The talking monkey?”

But Cullen was still squinting.

“No,” Cullen said. “No, it can’t be.”

Cullen stopped squinting. Cullen reared back in shock with a huge beam on his face like he’d won the lottery.

He turned to the rest of the room.

“SELINA! KATE! CASS! GET OVER HERE _NOW!”_

* * *

Stephanie Brown paid off the cabbie, got out of the vehicle, and cursed herself for a fool as it drove away.

This whole thing was stupid. It was just inviting trouble. Bad questions. Bad memories.

_Would they even remember me?_

_Would they even let me in?_

As she walked across the gravel of the Wayne Manor courtyard, she knew she would have to improvise. There were too many variables to consider to have a plan.

But she was never very good at planning. And she was _great _at improvisation.

She puffed her cheeks out as she expelled a deep breath. She expected everything from anger to frostiness once she walked through that door.

What she did not expect, what she _could not _have expected, was what happened next.

What appeared to be the _entire Goddamned Justice League _started filing out of the front door of Wayne Manor.

Stephanie stopped dead in her tracks, at a complete loss as to what to do next.

_I was…_

_I was gonna be _cool _about this…_

Stephanie scanned the throng of over thirty people coming at her, looking for people she recognized.

There was the instantly recognizable Wonder Woman, of course. Cullen entered his thirties gracefully. Tim didn’t. That was… No, that couldn’t be Harper. No blue hair dye and no piercings. The telltale cowboy hat of one Virginia Hex. Big and beefy Clark Kent rolled up alongside Lois Lane, who was _rocking _her fifties like Stephanie could not believe. She was flanked by teenage male and female Clark Kent-alikes, so she figured they must be little Jon and Lara all grown up. Speaking of Kryptonians, there was a guy in his thirties with glasses that looked like Conner, but that couldn’t be him, as Conner didn’t age. And hey, there was Detective Chimp.

Her eyes instantly set on a beautiful Asian woman in a black dress and a black sweater who…

_It’s Cass._

_Dear God, don’t look._

Stephanie immediately snapped her attention to the one leading the charge. A beautiful woman with gray streaks in her long black hair.

It was Selina.

Only now, seeing Selina Wayne, did Stephanie feel fear.

Selina led the throng of people up to Stephanie… only to stop when she was a few feet away.

And everyone stopped behind her.

Selina’s surprised green eyes shrank back to normal size. Her hanging jaw finally shut. And she appraised Stephanie as though she were a Ming Dynasty teapot up for auction at Sotheby’s.

“A pair of old ladies,” Selina finally said, “are sitting on a porch drinking iced tea.”

Stephanie almost gawked. Fourteen years of what-ifs between the two women, and Selina Wayne… opted to open with a joke.

“The first old lady’s husband drives up,” Selina continued, “and he gets out of the car with a bouquet of roses. The first old lady says _‘Oh, no. The hubby has roses. You know what that means.’ _ The second old lady says _‘No, I actually _don’t _know what it means.’ _ The first old lady says _‘It means he’s gonna expect me to spend the entire weekend with my legs wide open and in the air.’ _ The second old lady says _‘That’s terrible. You don’t have a _vase _to put them in?’”_

Only one of the people behind Selina laughed at that joke. Some woman about Stephanie’s age in a black turtleneck, sporting a black undercut and a horrifically bruised face.

Stephanie didn’t know her.

“Ugh,” Lois Lane said. “Dear God, Selina, I have my _kids _with me.”

One of those kids, the girl who must have been Lara, looked around and said “Gotham City people are weird.”

Only now, once it was over, did Stephanie realize what had happened.

Selina just didn’t want to appear too eager.

It was just as Stephanie remembered.

_Oh, Selina, don’t ever change…_

“What?” Selina asked. “You expect me to break down sobbing, telling you how much I missed you?”

Selina gently held Stephanie’s shoulders, softly kissed her on the forehead, and whispered…

_“Welcome home, kiddo.”_

...into her ear before she stepped to the side.

And off to the side was… a really brawny ginger woman in a black toga. She had a wide, closed-mouth smile and tears in her green eyes. It took Stephanie a couple of seconds, but…

_“Kate?”_

With that, Kate Kane broke out into open sobbing, and quite literally picked Stephanie up to hug her.

“I MISSED YOU SO-HO-HO MU-HU-HUCH!” Kate screamed while weeping.

Stephanie, who was in the process of being hugged so tightly that she could hear vertebrae pop, struggled to get her words out.

_“Kate… Kate… A bitch needs to breathe.”_

Kate finally put Stephanie back down. She was still crying, but now Diana of Themyscira had her hand on Kate’s left bicep, looking at the former Batwoman with complete and total warmth.

Stephanie caught her breath before finally asking “What happened to you?”

_“I’m… I’m an Amazon now,” _Kate said, still leaking and snotting on herself. _“Y’know… Bonds of Sisterhood… Crap like that..._

“You got _soft, _is what happened to you.”

_“I know,” _Kate said, still trying to ride the wave of her own sobbing. _ “It’s… It’s fucking pathetic.”_

“KIDS!” Lois Lane yelled.

“So… how’s the Amazon thing working out for you, then?” Stephanie asked.

_“It’s great,” _Kate said, still failing to calm herself down. _“I… I live in Lesbian Candy Land now… It’s awesome, it really is…”_


	16. Whatever Happened to the Teenage Dream?

**Chapter 16: Whatever Happened to the Teenage Dream?**

The mass of squawking and stunned super-humanity, with Stephanie Brown at its center, entered the foyer. Stephanie looked around the place.

She hadn’t been here in fourteen years. Stephanie had expected the place to seem like it shrank in the almost decade and a half since she had last set foot on this floor. But it looked the same size.

Maybe Stephanie hadn’t grown.

She scowled at herself _Stupid fucking metaphors…_

The chattering and hooting of the hoi polloi dipped. Stephanie looked around, and saw what everyone was staring at.

Bruce Wayne was standing at the top of the stairs.

And he was staring right at her.

Stephanie thought the beard was a new, and altogether welcome touch to Bruce Wayne’s appearance, but she set that to the side.

There was… _something _in his eyes. As though Stephanie were a mystery he just needed one more bit of evidence to solve.

Finally, after a seeming eternity, Bruce turned, and walked away.

Lara Lane-Kent broke the silence.

“What did that mean?” she asked. “Why was he being weird? _Why is everyone here so weird? _”

This brought the conversation back up to a dull roar. As everyone was talking to everyone, Selina pried Stephanie out of Kate Kane’s iron grasp, and took her off to the side.

Stephanie was about to ask her how she’d been, but Selina cut her off.

“Steph,” she said. “We know.”

Stephanie’s insides started making ice cubes. “You… know what?”

_“That,” _Selina said. “We know _that. _ And before you ask, no, Kate didn’t out you. We just had eyes and decided to start using them one day as we did math in hindsight. I saw you physically willing yourself not to look at Cass out in the courtyard. I also saw your make a note to yourself not to watch her walk into that lounge over there. Now talk to whoever you need to talk to… but you _will _talk to her.”

Stephanie sighed, and tried to look for stray hairs on Selina’s head. “I came here to pay my respects to Dick. I can actually say for a fact now that we’re all grown-ups. I can’t… waste my time thinking about… something that affected me as a teenager. Or hers.”

Selina was polite enough to close her eyes before she rolled them. She placed her hands on Stephanie’s shoulders and sighed.

“Steph,” Selina said, “I think the world of you. But there is one important thing you have to know.”

She leaned in and whispered in Stephanie’s ear.

_“I spent twenty years dressed as a cat. That means I know a pussy when I see one.”_

* * *

Near an end table upon which sat a priceless Han vase, Aaliyah partook in a conversation with Carrie Kelley, Lara Lane-Kent, and Jon Lane-Kent.

“Nasthalthia Luthor,” Jon said.

Aaliyah hadn’t been listening to what Jon was saying so much as she was looking at his smooth prettiness while his lips moved.

She furrowed her brow. “N--Nasth…”

“Nasthalthia,” Jon said again. “We just call her _‘Nasty.’”_

“Who in their right mind would name their daughter that?” Aaliyah asked.

“Lena Luthor,” said Lara. “Luthors have this thing about _‘overcoming obstacles, _’ even though the Luthors have more money than Jesus and at least six disciples. I guess she figured naming her daughter a name that can be shortened to _‘Nasty’ _was a way of getting that patented Luthor chip on her shoulder.”

_“Had,” _Carrie said. _“Had _money. Selina saw to that.”

“There are still stashes of cash she can get to,” Jon said. “And now that she’s broke on paper, she gets really _nasty. _ No pun intended.”

“You always intend the pun,” Lara said.

“No, I don’t. Anyway, that’s my biggest supervillain.”

“Amateur,” Lara said.

“What?”

“Aaaaaa-muhhhhhh-tooooor,” Lara said. “Nasty’s more concerned about her aesthetics than her actual crimes.” She looked at Aaliyah. “She wears a hat that looks like the boomerang antenna on the back of an old limousine.”

“Who’s the most dangerous supervillain _you’ve _fought then?” Aaliyah asked, trying to defend Jon’s honor for what she was painfully aware were shallow teenage girl reasons.

“Oh God,” Jon said. “You’re gonna say Sea Daddy, aren’t you?”

Both Carrie and Aaliyah cracked up.

Lara looked at all three of them with indignance. “Sea Daddy is...”

Cracking up.

“I’ll have you know, Sea Daddy is…” 

_Still _cracking up.

Lara folded her arms. “Sea Daddy is an extremely dangerous man… and all three of you _suck.”_

She looked at Carrie. “And why are you laughing? Gotham doesn’t have any supervillains at all.”

“Hey,” Jon said with some stank on his voice. He pointed around him. “They do now.”

Lara had the decency to blush. “Oh… Right…”

Thus began the uncomfortable silence. One that Aaliyah decided to break.

“I, uh… I have supervillains for parents,” she said.

“Oh, that’s right,” Jon said.

Lara, eager to move past her faux-pas, leaned in. “Black Manta and Talia al Ghul?”

“Yeah.”

“Did they, like… _doooo _stuff?”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Supervillainy stuff,” Jon said. “Murdering people, robbing banks, ripping those little tags off of mattresses, things like that.”

“Well,” Aaliyah said, “my mom yelled at me for sneaking behind the bar she worked at and guzzling creme de menthe. I was like, ten. But I was too busy puking green to hear what she was yelling… I think it was Farsi.”

“There’s no way her parents did supervillainy stuff,” Jon said to Lara.

“And how do you know that?”

“Because she’s _nice.”_

Aaliyah wanted to thank Jon for the lovely compliment he had paid her.

But all that came out of her mouth was “Well… Y’know… I mean…”

Aaliyah was grateful when, immediately after the ungodly caveman sounds came out of her mouth, Carrie decided to swoop in and save her like the superhero she was.

“Hey,” Carrie said. “Does anyone want to throw Batarangs at a tree?”

Aaliyah smiled. She _did, _actually.

* * *

“Who’s the new meat?” Violet asked.

“The new meat, Tim said, “is old meat. That’s an ex of mine. Stephanie Brown.”

“Why should that name mean anything to me?” Violet asked.

Tim shot her a look, and said “Spoiler.”

“What would it spoil if you told me?”

“No,” Tim said, “That _is _Spoiler.”

Violet looked at Tim, and then at Stephanie across the room, and then back at Tim.

“Spoiler?” She asked, a grin slowly spreading across her bruised face. _ “The _Spoiler?”

“The very same,” said Tim.

“Wait,” Violet said, the grin slowly slipping off. “Brown? Isn’t that Cluemaster’s last name?”

Tim nodded, feeling his stomach sourly gurgle.

Another double take from Violet, and that grin turned into a full-blown smile. She walked up to Tim, keeping her voice at a high whisper.

_“She cacked her own father?”_

“Yes.”

_“Wow.”_

Tim pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I,” Violet Paige said, “am going to get along with Stephanie Brown.”

Tim sighed.

“So the hero of Game Seven’s been gone a while, huh?”

“Fourteen years,” said Tim.

“Why?”

“Well,” Tim said, “We know she dropped Cluemaster. That much is certain. What’s a little more murky is if she _meant _to or not.”

“And killing is frowned upon in Casa del Wayne.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Tim said. “Now… I’m a detective. In a perfect world, I’d run on clues and evidence. But this isn’t a perfect world, so a lot of what I do is hunch-work. If you asked me what I feel in my gut as opposed to what I think in my head, then…”

“Then what?” Violet asked.

Tim sighed again. “Look, I know Stephanie. If she only had to deal with Batman’s judgement for maybe-or-maybe-not dropping her dad off the roof of a building? She’d have stayed and took it. If she had to deal with Kate and Selina giving her the sad eyes? She’d have stayed here and took it. If she had to deal with me and Harper going _‘Dude, what the fuck?’ _ She’d have stayed and took it. But the one thing she could not stay here and take… was what our mutual friend _Cassandra _would say. After a fashion, I mean.”

“Why Cass?” Violet asked.

“You know Cass’ whole deal, right? That guy she killed?”

“Yeah, I know it. The one her father ordered.”

“Well… and again, this is a hunch… I don’t think she could bear the look on Cass’ face if it was even theoretical that Steph did something that Cass devoted her entire life to _not _doing. I don’t think that’s a bridge Steph was willing to cross.”

“Hmm,” Violet said, the smile on her face replaced with a stony glare. “Did they, uh…”

“Stephanie Brown was _deeply _in love with Cassandra Cain,” Tim said. “Sincere, slobbering, teenage girl love. It was obvious in hindsight, but we didn’t know Steph was gay until after she left. Kate knew, but she found out by accident. Selina knew, but she performed rather impressive detective work to find that out. At about year ten, no one thought Steph was coming back, so she.. kinda… let the info slip.”

“Hmm,” Violet said in a monotone, her face still as unyielding as the fellas on Mount Rushmore. “But she’s back now.”

“That she is,” Tim said. “You, uh… You alright?”

Violet downed the last of her second cognac of the day, set the glass on a nearby table without even minding the coaster a few inches away from it, and began her walk.

Tim knew where she was going.

Contrary to initial projections by both parties, it appeared that Violet Paige was _not _going to get along with Stephanie Brown.

* * *

Someone was coming toward Stephanie.

She was drinking a glass of bourbon, admiring a painting in the main foyer, when a burly six-foot-tall woman in a tight black turtleneck approached her.

It was the one who laughed at Selina’s vase joke outside.

Stephanie squinted at her… and then recognized her.

“Violet?”

The woman had come up to her with purpose, as though a late-nineties butt rock anthem was playing her on her way to the ass-whoopin’ she was dying to give out. But hearing her name like that apparently threw her off her game. She literally stumbled, her blue eyes widening.

“What?” Violet asked.

“Violet Paige,” Stephanie said. “Violent Violet. From the tabloids. We get those in Europe.”

Stephanie watched Violet actually shake her head, before she regained her bearings. Violet used all six of her feet to loom over the five-seven Stephanie.

“Hi,” Violet said. 

“Hi back,” said Stephanie.

Violet held out her hand for Stephanie to shake. “I’m Mother Panic.”

Now, Stephanie knew that Violet would take the opportunity to crush her hand in that shake, in a passive-aggressive way of… wait, why the hell was Violet doing this?”

So Stephanie held up her right hand, the one holding her glass of bourbon, and said “I got my shakin’ hand full.”

Violet blinked at her, and Stephanie knew that that was as far as her plan went.

Stephanie didn’t break eye contact as Violet lowered her hand. And those eyes told her that Violet was at a total loss as to what to do next.

Violet seemed to puff up some more, and said “I’m Cassandra’s ex.”

In hindsight, when she would look back on it in the hours and days that followed, this one single sentence had well over a decade-and-a-half of baggage that needed to be unpacked.

But in the moment, Stephanie reacted instinctively. And the record should show that the instincts of one Stephanie Brown tended toward the smart-assed.

“Well how did you get those bruises on your face?” Stephanie asked. “From being Mother Panic, or being Cassandra’s ex?”

And with that, Stephanie looked at her drink, took a sip, and then looked back at the painting of the sunrise, not giving Violet the time of day.

She still listened, though. Listened for those big blocky boots of hers to squeak on the floor, which meant the rest of her body was gearing up for a punch.

But the boot squeaks never came. What did come was a lot of heavy breathing through the nose.

Stephanie gave it a few seconds…

...a few more seconds…

_Jesus, she’s still here?_

Stephanie finally favored Violet with a look. And the expression on Violet Paige’s face was one of utter loathing enmeshed _In Flagrante Delicto _with sheer frustration. Even under her bruises, she was turning red.

Being as she was an expert in such things, Stephanie theorized that more smart-assery would, indeed, be in order.

“Oh, dear,” Stephanie said. “You’re one of those, aren’t you?”

Violet finally blinked. “One of _what?”_

Stephanie sighed, worked her mouth into a commiserating frown, and gently put her hand on Violet’s shoulder.

“Violet,” Stephanie said, “you have my permission to leave.”

Then she let go of Violet and went back to the painting.

Stephanie gave it a few seconds… .

..and didn’t get to the third one before she heard those big blocky boots of Violet Paige’s stomp off.

Now that she was free of Violet Paige’s attempts at aggression, she could wrap her brain around the bombshell.

_Cass’ ex-girlfriend._

_Huh…_

_That’s…_

_Huh…_

* * *

Tim had watched the whole thing unfold with great interest. Were Conner handy, he’d have asked him to eavesdrop for him.

After about a minute of what appeared to be awkwardness and wake fouls piling on top of one another, Violet stomped back to Tim, taking up her original position.

“Well?” Tim asked.

Violet folded her arms, kicked the floor, and said _“Fuck…”_

* * *

Bruce sat on his bed looking out the window at the dim sky outside. He could hear the din of people downstairs. He could hear birds chirping outside.

And he could hear the intermittent “THOKK!” of Carrie, Aaliyah, Jon, and Lara chucking Batarangs into the old ash tree outside.

Stephanie was on his mind… But he’d get to her later. Face-to-face.

For now, he was thinking about Jason. What he’d said when he stormed up here.

Jason Todd’s forgiveness would be a long time coming, if it ever came at all. But on the whole it was good that Jason entered the house. It was good that he stayed. Not for Bruce himself, though. Not for the betterment of the network, not for crimefighting purposes, but because he would know there was a roof if he wanted it, food if he needed it, and an entire selection of castoffs just like him that would have his back should his back need having.

Bruce reflected that, for someone who had problems with forgiving himself, he had surrounded himself with people who forgave him constantly.

It was a nice thing to reflect upon, which meant that it was precisely the thing he did not want to reflect upon at present.

Nevertheless, he would be left with no choice.

For there was a knock upon the door.

Bruce ignored it.

A few seconds later, the sound of another knock filled the Wayne Manor master bedroom.

Bruce ignored that as well.

Finally, a man’s deep and rich voice sounded from the other side of the door.

“If you had heard Roy’s speech downstairs,” the man said, “then you’d know that there are some things you can only door with your friends. Not your wife. Not your daughter. Your friends.”

A woman’s voice made its presence felt as well.

“Exactly,” she said. “And you know full well that if we wish to enter, we certainly have the means to do so.”

Bruce caught a sigh, and picked himself up off the bed. He walked to the door, unlocked it, and opened it…

...to see Clark Kent and Diana of Themyscira.

Diana put her hand on Bruce’s left shoulder. Clark's hand went on Bruce’s right, his weathered face smiling at Bruce behind glasses everyone in the house knew he didn’t need. And both sets of blue eyes looked upon him with warmth and sympathy.

Bruce wanted to be alone with his misery and his self-recrimination.

He also knew that Clark and Diana would not _suffer _that bullshit.

“Alright,” Bruce said. “Come on in.”

He closed the door behind them.

* * *

“We’re the wives,” Lois Lane said.

In one of the rec rooms just off the foyer, Lois Lane sat on one of the plush navy blue couches. Kate Kane leaned against the wall next to the doorway.

As for Selina, she sat on the edge of the pool table. Her two-year-old black cat Blackberry had jumped up on the green felt. Selina just held her finger out, and the cat nudged up against it, doing most of the head-scratching work herself.

“Diana and I aren’t married,” Kate said, before she looked around the door frame and saw someone.

“Hey!” Kate called. “C’mere.”

Selina watched Conner Kent come to the doorway.

“Conner, have you seen Wonder Girl?” Kate asked. “Diana was looking forward to seeing Cassie and, well…”

From her vantage point, it looked like Conner… For a split second… choked back a _lot _of anger before he said “Nope. Haven’t seen her.”

“Okay,” Kate said, either not seeing that anger or not caring. “Thanks anyway.”

Conner nodded and left.

Kate turned to Lois. “Not like it matters, though. Monogamy isn’t enforced, _per se, _it just… seems like a good idea. That and, y’know, it’s not like I can do any better.”

“That’s a horrible thing for anyone to say about themselves,” said Lois.

Kate’s voice was all sarcasm when she said “Oh, no… I can’t do any better than the most beautiful woman on Earth… Poor me…”

Lois rolled her eyes. Selina smiled.

“The first time I met Clark,” Lois said, “I… didn’t meet Clark. My eyes just went from Jimmy to Perry in Perry’s office, completely skipping over him standing in the middle. Didn’t even see him. We had our introductions, and...”

Lois took a breath, her eyes seemingly transfixed by something invisible out the window.

“Later that day,” Lois said, “the rotors on the news chopper I was in went out. As me and the pilot were falling into the ocean below, I remember thinking to myself _‘I got a Pulitzer, I had a good run.’ _ And I clung to that so hard that it took me a while to notice that we were _rising _instead of _falling. _ I look out the window, and there he was. More powerful than a locomotive, lifting that chopper up onto the bridge.”

Lois smiled. Selina did too, after seeing her get lost in herself.

“When I went on that chopper,” Lois said, “before I knew there was a Superman, I was cynical and bitter.”

“And now?” Kate asked.

“Now,” Lois said, “I still am. I know love redeems, and all that happy horseshit, but almost twenty years later, I still feel the same. I married Mister Rogers, except sexy and able to throw planets at Doomsday, and I still feel sick whenever a politician says _‘I want to keep the money out of politics.’ _ I want to know who paid off the cop that actually does his job _besides _the taxpayer. And when a CEO donates to charity, I want to know how big their tax cut is. No offense.”

“None taken,” said Selina.

“Twenty friggin’ years,” Lois said. “And I still don’t know what he sees in me.”

“Oh, I know,” Kate said. “I mean besides the obvious. Take it from the Amazon Lesbian, your fifties look great on you.”

Lois exaggeratedly blinked her violet eyes, and said “Why _thank _you.”

“It’s because you can do what he can’t,” Kate said.

Lois did not seem to comprehend the statement.

“Look,” Kate said, “Clark is literally the nicest man on Earth. He will give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I”ve never seen anything like it.”

“What do you _mean _you’ve never seen anything like it?” Selina asked. “You’re with _Wonder Woman.”_

“Clearly you haven’t seen Diana when Old Chicago runs out of cheesecake,” Kate said.

“Diana goes to Old Chicago?” Lois asked. “Dear God, why?”

“Everyone has their crappy guilty pleasure,” Kate said. “But what I’m trying to say is that Clark Kent is constitutionally incapable of calling bullshit on anyone. And that’s where you come in. You’ll ask the questions that’ll never occur to him. Then, and only then, can he get to the _‘Truth’ _part of _‘Truth, Justice, and the American Way.’ _ You’re not an ornament. You’re a core component. And if I were the most powerful being in the world, I’d probably flock to the people who could easily do things that I couldn’t.”

Lois pondered this, and nodded. “Uh-huh. So if he’s with me because I can do the things he can’t, does it work the other way around?”

“Sure it does,” Selina said. “He fixes your shitty spelling, doesn’t he?”

“I’m a _great _speller,” Lois said. “Just an awful typist.”

She picked her glass of wine up off the floor, took a sip, and looked at Selina.

“Okay,” Lois said. “Your turn.”

_“My _turn?” Selina asked. “This is a thing, and there are _turns?”_

“It is now,” Lois said. “The most self-pitying sad sack on Earth went into therapy because he didn’t want to lose you. The most aggressively solitary man I have ever met has people crawling all over his house right now. What does that _say?”_

“You mean cosmically?” Selina asked.

“I mean whatever,” Lois replied.

Selina thought as Blackberry sat down next to her leg. Beyond chemistry, beyond comfort, something had to be there.

In the beginning, there was Batman and The Joker.

They waged a decade-long, bloody war for the soul of Gotham City. It could have been theorized that they dueled for so long because they were such direct opposites. A laughing man who slaughtered people versus a man who never smiled, but would also never kill, even in self-defense.

But Selina knew better.

It was because the two of them saw, within each other, what they were missing within themselves. The Joker was wholly incapable of seeing life as anything other than a sick masquerade. And Batman could not see outside the duty that he felt was thrust upon him by an uncaring and sadistic fate. It wasn’t simple order versus chaos. It was Batman’s destiny versus The Joker’s free will.

And then… Catwoman made Batman laugh.

And Bruce Wayne needed Selina Kyle to remind him that there was still a Bruce Wayne left. Somewhere down there. Beneath all the rubble and anguish.

As for Selina? Bruce kept telling her she was a good person, and she kept not believing him. But he kept saying it and saying it and saying it, never giving up, until she saw the truth for herself.

She was more than good. She was all things _greatness _. Trophy wife. Mother figure. Cool aunt. Superhero. CEO. Lady of Wayne Manor. All earned, and never stolen.

That’s what Selina _thought._

What Selina _said _was “It says he’s an ass man with a great sense of humor.”

Lois rolled her eyes. “Fine, don’t tell me,” she said, before turning to Kate wordlessly.

“Oh, I know exactly why Diana’s with me,” Kate said.

“And why’s that?” asked Selina.

“Because,” Kate said, “it’s so the three of _them _can look at the three of _us, _and say _‘Hey, their last names rhyme.’”_

A ghastly and pregnant silence.

Missus Wayne, Missus Lane, and Admiral Kane all looked at each other.

Selina and Bruce’s fifteenth wedding anniversary was in a few days, on Halloween. And in all that time… that little coincidence had never once occurred to her.

“Aw, shit,” Lois said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I’m gonna have to change my name to Kent, aren’t I?”

* * *

Kara and Crush watched as Starfire (accompanied by her girlfriend Jessica Cruz) spoke to Jessica’s partner in the Green Lantern Corps, Simon Baz.

Starfire was pleasant. She’d been pleasant all throughout the time Kara and Crush had been watching her.

But she was so absent about it that it was creeping Kara out.

“Why didn’t the two of them ever get hitched?” Crush asked.

Kara looked at her. “Kory and Jess? Or Jess and Simon? Because there were questions about that second one in the early going.”  
  
“The first one.”

“Well,” Kara said, “Princess Koriand’r is technically married to a prince on her home planet of Tamaran.”

“Yknow, I heard something like that,” Crush said. “But I could have sworn that dude died.”

“He did,” Kara said. “I said _‘technically.’ _ Tamaranean marriages don’t annul upon death.”

“Oh,” Crush said. And then they kept watching.

“The Stepford Starfire,” Crush said. “It’s… it’s kinda off-putting isn’t it?”

“Oh, it’s maddening.”

Crush nodded.

And they both _slooooooowly _turned… to Raven, who was sitting in a chair next to the wall.

Raven had been following Jessica and Starfire all throughout their time at Wayne Manor. Never saying anything, and always… _staring _at the two of them.

Kara and Crush looked at each other. It was unspoken, but they both mutually decided to get down to the bottom of this.

The two of them walked over to Raven. Even when they obstructed Raven’s view, she seemed to stare through them.

“Hiya, Raven,” Kara said.

**“Miss Danvers,”** Raven said in a voice that sounded both chirpy and demonic at the same time. **“Miss Rojas.”**

“So… Starfire’s acting a little strange,” Kara said. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

**“I do not wish to violate my friend’s confidence,”** Raven said, still staring through them.

“So it’s a confidence thing?” Crush asked.

“Look,” Kara said. “Just set our minds at ease, okay? We’re worried.”

Raven sighed.

**“Fine.”**

And then sighed again.

**“Tamaraneans,” **Raven said, **“are not known for their emotional restraint. They are a deep feeling people who react upon their emotions without thinking in regards to the long term. Koriand’r… is a ****_font_ ****of grief at present. She is sad and angry in equal measure. She does not wish to disgrace the memory of Dick Grayson by collapsing in sadness… or destroying this house and everyone in it in her rage.”**

Kara and Crush looked at each other, before looking back at Starfire.

The apparently wrathful and morose Princess Koriand’r of Tamaran was primly covering her mouth with her hand as she smiled. Simon Baz must have said something witty.

“Again,” Kara said, “not to labor the point or anything, but she doesn’t look like she’s sad or angry. That’s kind of the problem we have.”

**“She does not,”** Raven said, **“because I am consuming her emotions. I am doing as she asked.”**

“So she asked you to eat all of her negative emotions so she could get through this without embarrassing herself?” Crush asked.

“I didn’t know consuming emotions was something you could even do,” Kara said.

Raven seemed irked by this. She almost blinked.

**“Kara… You have known me for almost ** **_twenty years._ ** ** And you did not know I could do this?”**

“Hey,” Crush said. “Lay off. Everything you do is weird and hard to explain.”

**“But yes,”** Raven said. **“Koriand’r loved… and still loves… Dick Grayson too much to cause a scene. No matter how much she may want to.”**

“Huh,” said Crush.

“Is it difficult?” Kara asked.

**“There is so much of it,”** Raven said. **“It is… ****_filling.”_**

_“‘Filling?’ _Kara asked. “What do y--”

Kara did not get to finish her question.

For, at that moment, Raven opened her mouth and unleashed a long, deep, cavernous belch. It was the kind of sound an Eldritch monstrosity made before it died of old age. It was the sound a creaky floorboard made inside an echo chamber, slowly played back with the bass boosted.

Everyone in the foyer stopped what they were doing and saying, and looked at Raven.

**“Excuse me,”** she said.

“Hey,” said Crush. “Better out than in.”

* * *

Stephanie had caught up with everyone as best she could.

So many people telling her so many different things about the past fourteen years that little of it stuck.

Harper Row was deputy mayor of Gotham City, though. That one she’d remember to her grave. Last she checked, Harper was this punk kid with blue hair and piercings, stealing Tim Drake’s virginity and firing taser pistols in the air. Only for her to come back and see a responsible politician and divorced mother of one where her friend used to be.

It was _weird._

The whirlwind of talking took her around the foyer, stopping for the occasional joke or Raven belch, when she found herself on the outside of one of the lounges.

She didn’t mean to look inside, of course, with all these people milling about. Some she hadn’t spoken to in years, some she had never spoken to at all.

Her eyes, looking from one superhero to the next, just happened to find their way into the lounge…

...and upon Cassandra Wayne, who was sitting alone, on a stool, at the bar. Hands folded, just… looking at nothing in particular.

_She hasn’t grown an inch._

_She still has her old hairstyle._

_She’s… She’s just a person._

A great weight lifted within Stephanie’s chest. She would only admit that she was scared to talk to Cassandra after she found that she _wasn’t _scared of talking to Cassandra anymore.

And she only vaguely noticed the self-deception required to house that thought in the first place..

Stephanie walked into the lounge with her head held high, back straight, ready to tackle this like the fearless pro she was.

Cassandra turned and looked at her.

_Oh, shit…_

For the first time in fourteen years, Stephanie Brown had caught the full blast of Cassandra Wayne’s bottomless brown eyes. Her adorable plump lips. That little snub nose. Those thick-but-not-too-thick black eyebrows that seemed ready for any emotion from anger to undie-pissing giddiness.

And just like that, Stephanie was scared again.

_BAIL OUT! BAIL OUT!_

But she couldn’t. She’d made it this far. The event horizon was back there somewhere. Stephanie Brown had been drop-kicked almost half of a lifetime back. Back to the days when she wore a goofy eggplant superhero suit, and her greatest desire was that one day Batgirl would like her back. And all she could say, the greatest statement of intent or profundity that she could possibly offer to the air and to Cassandra Wayne was…

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Cassandra said back.

Then nothing.

Stephanie, not wanting to feel like an idiot just standing there, opted to feel like an idiot while sitting down. She took the stool two down from Cass.

Silence followed.

Looooooooong awwwwwwwwwkward siiiiiiiiiilence.

Stephanie racked her brain for something thoughtful to say...

“So… I hear you’re an actor?”

...thus cementing her failure.

“Yes.”

“On stage.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Putting more than two words together. Reciting monologues, and shit like that.”

“Yup.”

“But… not now?”

Cassandra opened her mouth, then closed it again, before she looked off.

_Welp, that didn’t work._

Eventually Cass opted to speak.

“I, uh… I paid for your mother’s funeral… I was hoping you’d show, but, uh…”

Steph tilted her head and squinted. “My mom’s dead?”

Cassandra instantly turned red. _“Oh, no…”_

Stephanie couldn’t help but let out a bark of a laugh. It helped.

“Relax,” Stephanie said. “I’m screwing with you. I knew. I had a Google Alert for her name when she passed four years ago. I mean I didn’t come back, but…”

“Oh,” Cassandra said. “Okay. It… It just seems like a weird thing to mess with someone over.”

“I, uh… I needed to break the ice,” Stephanie said, feeling the blood rush to her face.

“Oh.”

More awkward silence.

_There is a difference, _Stephanie thought, _between breaking the ice and building an iceberg. And you don’t know it. Congratulations, Fucko._

Finally, Cassandra spoke again.

“We need to catch up,” she said. “We do. But right now, though? We need to talk business.”

“Business?” Stephanie asked, feeling her interior lightening. “What business?”

_I can talk business._

“We need to talk,” Cassandra said, “about why you’re in Gotham City right now.”

* * *

“I don’t like this,” said Garth of Shayeris.

He was standing with the four living members of the original Teen Titans on the rear stone patio of Wayne Manor.

Garth, the former Aqualad and current Tempest, stood next to the glass door leading into the house. Wally West was standing in the middle of the patio.

As for Roy Harper, he was laying on the stone railing of the patio, his head in the lap of his wife Donna Troy. He looked up at her.

_Hell of a view, _he thought.

“Don’t like what?” Wally asked.

Garth smoothed out his red Atlantean robes. “We are here to mourn Dick Grayson, but everyone in that house is laughing and joking.”

Wally put his hands on his hips. “Dude.”

“What?”

Roy called out. “Dude.”

_“What?”_

“Remember who we’re here to mourn,” Donna said. “Dick Grayson.”

“Yeah,” said Roy. “There’s a time for sad speeches. I know. I’m the one who gave it. You seriously think Dick Grayson would want us all sobbing till we didn’t have any piss left? Laughs were gonna come eventually.”

“It’s just undignified,” said Garth.

“Those _robes _are undignified,” Wally said. “Those shoulder pads make you look like you’re about to take the ice for the New Jersey Devils.”

Roy squinted. “You were never sports guy.”

“I’m not,” Wally said. “Linda is.”

“Where _is _Linda?” Donna asked.

“On assignment. Still in Keystone. And Jai and Irey are at college, before you ask. Where’s Dolphin?”

“Still in Atlantis,” Garth said. “Plotting troop movements against The Trench.”

“Remember when Dick made Doctor Light crotch himself?” Roy asked.

It came out of nowhere, sure, but it was on Roy’s mind.

“Oh, come on, don’t tell me you don’t remember,” Roy said. “We were fighting him on this rooftop, we chased him off the edge, and he landed standing on the flagpole. _Somehow, _he was _standing _on it. Robin chucked a Batarang at it, he lost his footing, and he crotched himself.”

He smiled when he looked at Donna. “I remember you had to fly down and catch him before he hit the pavement and died.”

“I remember,” Donna said, “We were playing Truth or Dare when we were seventeen. This was in the version of the Titans with Raven and Beast Boy. Anyway, he picked Truth, and I asked him whether or not he thought I had a fat ass.”

“And?” Wally asked.

“And,” Donna aid, “he told me the truth… and I ran into a closet crying."

“Why,” Garth asked, “in the Name of Poseidon, would a teenage girl ask a teenage boy for the unvarnished truth about her physical appearance?”

“Because I thought he’d be honest.”

“Again… _Why?”_

“Because it was _bugging me,” _Donna said. “My jeans just kept getting tighter.”

The fact of the matter was, unlike Diana of Themyscira, or Cassandra Sandsmark, or even Kate Kane, Donna Troy _aged. _ She looked like the thirty-eight-year-old woman that she actually was.

Roy, as well as the others in attendance, knew that this was a quirk of her origin story.

The problem was that no one here _knew _Donna Troy’s origin story. They’d all heard conflicting reports, and they were all disproven.

Now that they were married, Roy was too afraid to ask.

“The _last _person who should be talking smack about a fat ass,” Wally said, “was Dick Grayson. Of _all _the people.”

Donna looked down at Roy. “Do you think my ass is fat?”

“Honey,” Roy said, “I’m not saying it’s _the _reason I asked you to marry me. But it’s _a _reason. Like, top five.”

Donna smiled.

Then she flicked his nose.

“It’s weird the two of you didn’t date,” Roy said.

“Roy,” Donna said, “you’re my husband now. You can let it go.”

“I can still be your husband and still think it’s weird,” Roy said. “Usually, the Prom Queen marries the Prom King, and not The Junkie.”

“The Junkie had depth,” Donna said. “But… It was… I dunno. I mean I knew he was an option. But I kept being me, he kept being him, and… and then I just didn’t _want _to. You know what I mean?”

“No,” Garth said. “No, I don’t.”

“I do,” Roy said.

Donna looked down at him. “You do?”

“Yeah,” Roy said. “It’s Taylor Swift Syndrome.”

“What’s Taylor Swift Syndrome?”

“When I was a kid,” Roy said, “I had this massive crush on Taylor Swift. Thought she was hot. But she was so hot for so long that she stopped being _‘Taylor Swift: The Sexual Entity,’ _and more _‘Taylor Swift: The Institution.’ _ It’s like… _‘Say, Roy, do you think Taylor Swift is pretty?’ ‘I sure do, Mister Whoever-The Fuck-Is-Asking-Me-That-Question.’ ‘Would you like to spend the night with her?’ ‘Oh I can’t, sir, my credit rating sucks, and I didn’t go to school for it.’”_

“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” Donna said, “but… _Taylor Swift?”_

“I’d have called it Donna Troy Syndrome, but that worked out well for me in the end.”

Donna pointed down at him, before looking at Garth and Wally.

“See that?” Donna asked. “That’s charm. Learn it, and you will never have to fear divorce court.”

There was a brief fit of silence, before Wally walked over to the both of them, bent down, and picked up Roy’s glass of Sprite.

“Hey,” Roy said.

“Relax,” said Wally, “I’ll give it back.”

Wally went back to his starting spot on the patio, and raised the glass.

“We gather here today,” Wally said, “on this chilly October afternoon, to remember and pay homage to Quippy McThickpants. The best Robin, the greatest Teen Titan, and the Himbo by whom all other Himbos are judged. May the soil lay lightly upon him, may he have gotten to Heaven thirty minutes before the Devil knew he was dead, and may he have lasted thirty _seconds _in Heaven before Helen of Troy and Marilyn Monroe reached out to cop a feel. Amen.”

“Blessed be,” said Donna.

“So say we all,” said Garth.

Roy just smiled, and said “Titans Together.”

* * *

The one time Trinity: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, and Diana of Themyscira, were sitting on Bruce’s bed, with he himself in the middle, Diana to his right, and Clark to his left.

“I remember,” Clark said, “I knew you six months before I dropped by one of your patrols here in the city to say Hi. Had a kid following you around in a yellow cape. Didn’t really know what to make of it.”

Bruce wondered where he was going with this.

“Then you told me,” Clark said, “that you wanted to give him the opportunity to work out his anger over his parents’ death in a way you couldn’t with yours. On the job training with tangible results, as opposed to training all over the world for over a decade for a theory, like you did.”

“What did you think?” Bruce asked.

“I thought you were loony,” said Clark. “The only thing loonier was the fact that you were right and it worked.”

“His parents were murdered,” Diana said. “And he got over it. As opposed to…”

“You can say it,” Bruce said. “I know it and it’s true.”

“As opposed to you,” Diana said, looking for all the world as though she didn’t want to say it. “You never did.”

Bruce briefly closed his eyes.

The memory of that night was so clear that he could still count the damp bricks on the building to his left. See the loose thread on the right cuff of his father’s jacket swaying in the evening breeze. The glint on the gun barrel that Joe Chill would use to ruin his life.

He opened his eyes again.

“Dick was more well-adjusted than I am,” he said. “He had parts in place that I have missing.”

“Foolishness,” said Diana. “Dick Grayson was a good man. A great man. And you were responsible for this.”

As was customary when someone in Bruce Wayne’s inner circle paid him a compliment, Bruce’s insides quivered in an entirely unpleasant way.

“The more I look back on it,” Bruce said, “the more I think he got all of his good qualities from Alfred.”

Diana sighed, and looked over at Clark.

“And to think I was fixated on him for so long,” she said.

Bruce felt a light shine through the funk. This was the first time that she had mentioned the will-they-won’t-they between Batman and Wonder Woman in well over a decade.

“I was just counting the minutes until you snapped out of it,” said Clark. “What did it?”

“She started dating my cousin,” Bruce said, “who wore the exact same outfit.”

“I never said I did not have a type,” Diana said.

“Lois would say we’re burying the lede,” Clark said. “Only she would use more swear words. What really matters here is that just Bruce just made a joke.”

“What?” Bruce asked. “No, I didn’t.”

“You did!” Diana said, her blue eyes alight and her mouth open in shock. “And it was almost funny!”

“I was simply observing--”

“Next you’ll be on _The Tonight Show,” _Clark said. “Plugging your upcoming stand-up set at Mohegan Sun.”

“I just--”

“Then you shall get a sitcom deal at CBS,” Diana said, “playing someone’s wacky neighbor.”

Bruce glowered and sighed at the same time.

_They always keep picking on me…_

He felt better, though.

Not that he’d ever admit it.

“You have a superpower,” Clark said. “It’s your eye for talent.”

“Indeed,” said Diana.

“You have attracted some of the greatest minds and hardest fists to your side,” said Clark. “Dick, for one. Through her intelligence work, Barbara Gordon may have saved more lives than the three of us combined. Jason was a good kid, and might be a good man before it’s all said and done. Tim’s on the ground level of this city putting that brain of his to work for the disadvantaged. Harper Row’s an honest politician, which is rarer than leprechauns. A mute and illiterate murderer entered your sphere of influence, and came back out an award-winning stage actor with a more staunch no-kill rule than even _you _have, Bruce. And I for one never, _ever, _bought the idea that Stephanie Brown dropped her father off of that roof. Even if she did herself, the poor dear. I’d give her a pep talk, but you Gotham types have a habit of crying during those. Heavens to Betsy, I wish people would _smile _when I say nice things about them.”

“The fact,” Diana said, “is that everyone you decide to take in becomes a better person as a result.”

“But then,” Bruce said, “there are the villains.”

“Ugh,” Clark said. “Criminy.”

“They were not your fault,” said Diana.

“I seriously beg to differ.”

“Heck, no,” Clark said. “You didn’t wave your magic Bat-Wand and make them bad people. You may have inspired a few gimmicks, but that’s a far cry from being responsible for a body count. None of it was your fault, Bruce. You did nothing wrong.”

This level of kindness toward Bruce simply would not do. He needed to change the subject.

“How are the kids?” Bruce asked.

“Wonderful,” Clark said. “They’re wonderful.”

And he left it at that.

“Clark,” Diana said. “Such abbreviated statements are usually followed by a _‘but.’”_

“There’s no _‘but,’” _said Clark. “I love my children without reservation… There are just some things I’m curious about.”

“Such as?” Bruce asked.

“Well… Jon’s at that age. The _girls _age. And every other day or so, without fail, pretty girls Jon’s age come down to the farm to…”

“Great Hera…”

“...get help with their math homework.”

_“Whew.”_

“The problem I’m having,” Clark said, “is that these girls are coming down to the farm, they’re getting help with their studies… but they don’t want help with their studies, is what I’m saying. There’s the internet now, and if they really needed help, that’s where they’d go. They’re coming down to be with him, and Jon… just isn’t getting it.”

“What do you mean?” Bruce asked.

“What I mean,” said Clark, “is that every week he comes with scans of those girls’ improved test scores, and puts them on _our _fridge. There is a reason those girls come down to the farm, and it quite simply is _not _sinking in for him.”

Bruce steeled himself, and asked “Do you think he might be…”

“Gay?” Clark asked. “If Jon were gay, then that would be an explanation I could both comprehend and be proud of. But I’ve cleaned his room, and I’ve seen the bikini pictures he hides. I’m not discounting the possibility that Jon might have a jones for the company of men, but I am saying that if he does, he’s a champ at hiding it. I don’t care if Jon likes other boys. I am concerned that he’s into girls… and is _dumb as a fence post _about it. Because if he's out there breaking these poor girls' hearts, even if he isn't meaning to, then I just can't have that. The boy needs to be responsible.”

“Wait,” Bruce said. “Bikini pictures? Nothing more graphic than that?”

“I know,” Clark said. “It’s adorable, isn’t it?”

“I have a question,” said Diana.

“I might have an answer,” said Clark.

“Given what happened between myself and Kate,” Diana said, “you and Lois, and Bruce and Selina… do the three of us truly have the right to judge anyone’s romantic and sexual intelligence? Or lack thereof?”

All three of them were silent for a disconcerting amount of time.

“And Lara?” Bruce asked.

“Lara is an intelligent girl,” said Clark. “Very intelligent. She skipped a grade… But she has a devious streak, and I’m wondering where she got it from.”

“I’m afraid I require enlightenment,” said Diana.

“When she was ten,” said Clark, “she convinced Lois to set up a swear jar. Ten months later, Lara took that money, walked to town, and rode back on the pink Huffy she bought.”

“Lois swears that much?” Diana asked.

“She does,” said Bruce. “Like you would not believe.”

“Lara did not need that pink Huffy,” Clark said. “Lara can _fly. _ She did it just because she knew she could. And now she’s on her school debate team… If she goes into law, God help us all.”

Clark looked at Bruce out of the corner of his eye, seemingly embarrassed by what he was going to ask next.

“Do, um… Do you still have that Kryptonite gas down in the Batcave?”

Diana looked _scandalized. “Clark!”_

“I’m not going to _use _it,” Clark said. “But it would be handy in an argument. _ ‘Do as I say, young lady, or I’ll get the Kryptonite gas.’ _Then Lois and I might actually win an argument with our daughter for a change.”

“You don’t need Kryptonite,” said Diana. “Neither of you do.”

“A mind-controlled Kryptonian is this planet’s worst case scenario,” Bruce said. “Worst case scenarios need worst case solutions.”

“But we have magic users that can confine Kryptonians without the use of outer space minerals that give human beings cancer,” said Diana. “You know this. For the life of me, I have no idea why you have it.”

“Oh, I know,” said Clark before looking at Bruce. “I have this theory that you won’t let anything into your life that could beat you in a fight. It’s why you don’t believe in God. You have the Kryptonite gas, which levels the playing field, and you can therefore justify being friends with me. Which is actually very sweet… in that creepy and confrontational Bruce Wayne way you have about you.” 

Bruce sighed.

They were still picking on him.

* * *

“Where’s Stinky-Tits?” Helena Bertinelli asked.

Barbara Gordon, Helena Bertinelli, and Dinah Lance-Choi were outside in the courtyard, hanging out by the front door that led into the foyer. Dinah had been talking to her husband, Professor Ryan _“The Atom” _Choi, in fluent Cantonese. That conversation stopped, upon hearing of Helena’s question regarding the location of one Stinky-Tits.

_“Stinky-Tits” _had been Helena’s pet name for Cassandra Wayne for over a decade-and-a-half. Helena had been present on the first night Barbara had met Cassandra, where upon she discovered that the then-homeless Cassandra had been wearing a foul-smelling bra that she had fished out of a dumpster. And through sixteen years of pleas for her to refrain from using the sobriquet, Helena made it stick.

“Hon,” Dinah said to Ryan. “Would you mind giving us a few minutes?”

“Sure thing,” Ryan said, before giving his wife a peck on the cheek. He hugged Barbara, before turning to Helena, and saying “I am sorry for your loss.”

Helena rolled her eyes.

Dinah watched Ryan go back into Wayne Manor with the kind of soft-focus warmth reserved for _Lifetime _Christmas movies. Barbara remembered the old days when Dinah would blow into Gotham from Star City, angry and put out by some idiotic and egotistical thing that her then-beau Oliver _“Green Arrow” _Queen had said or done. Nowadays, she blew into Gotham from Ivy Town with a smile on her face, and the first thing she always said about Ryan was _“I miss him already.”_

_Good, _Barbara thought. _ She deserves it._

Which just now left Barbara and Dinah to deal with Helena.

The day had been less about mourning and remembering Dick Grayson, and more about babysitting Helena. She had not taken the news of Dick’s death well at all, and now that alcohol was added? 

Helena Bertinelli, the former Huntress, was the unlucky in love, constantly overlooked, put-upon bad girl. She’d had a fling with Dick that burned bright and flamed out. And Barbara thought that she needed all the love and patience she could get.

But Barbara’s patience had worn out.

“Why do you want to talk to Cass?” Barbara asked.

Helena took in a breath through perfectly white bared teeth. The dark skin around her mouth and her bleary brown eyes made her look like a predator in shadow.

“Wanna give her a piece of my mind,” Helena said, the alcohol making her tone wobble. “Wanna give _Bruce _a piece of my mind… How's_ that_ grab ya??”

“Hel,” Dinah said, sounding tired.

“Oh, _what?” _Helena asked. “If… If Bruce made Dick Batman like he shoulda, he’d still be alive. You ever think of that?”

One word sounded out in Barbara Gordon’s mind.

**Enough.**

She walked up and got right in Helena’s face.

“Hey.”

“What?”

_“Hey.”_

_“What?”_

“You will look me in the fucking eye when I talk to you.”

Helena wiped a lock of her curly brown hair out of her face, and her red-rimmed brown eyes met Barbara’s.

“If you so much as look at Bruce or Cass cross-eyed today,” Barbara said, “I will burn you. To a fucking crisp. That teaching job you have? Gone. You will never set foot inside a classroom again once the world knows you used to be Huntress.”

Helena snorted. “Then I’ll just have to tell the world you’re Oracle.”

“Go ahead,” Barbara said. “It’ll be worth it just to get revenge on you for going in there and being a complete fucking embarrassment. Are you gonna embarrass me?”

“No…”

“You want revenge for Dick?”

Helena made some more eye contact. Some clarity seemed to be seeping in.

“Yeah.”

“Then keep your mouth shut,” Barbara said, “and I’ll let you join the reindeer games.”

“Wait,” Dinah said, taking her blonde hair out of her ponytail and letting the wind have it for a while. “You know something we don’t?”

Barbara took a second to collect her thoughts. “Something about this whole Arkham Knight thing stinks. Beyond the stink it already does have. Some shit’s gonna go down, and when it does, I want the two hardest girls I know as backup. Can you stay in town for a while?”

“I’m gonna miss the faculty bake sale,” Dinah said, “But fuck it, I need the workout. I got your back, boo.”

“I’m retired,” Helena said.

“Are you?” asked Barbara.

Helena was about to say something, but she gave up in favor of a shrug and a pair of rolled eyes.

* * *

As Clark and Diana left the bedroom, Selina came in. She said her customary How-Do-Yo-Dos, before closing the door behind her. She leaned against it, and lowered her head.

Bruce looked at her, examining her posture, wondering what was coming next.

Selina finally looked up, looked at him, and smiled.

“Steph came home,” she said.

Bruce knew what this meant. He knew how much Stephanie Brown’s exodus had bothered his wife. He knew this because Selina barely mentioned it. Selina Wayne would break into profane soliloquy over any minor slight, but the stuff that _really _hurt, she dealt with in silence.

And people said Bruce and Selina were too different to get married.

Without saying a word, Bruce nodded, and opened his arms slightly.

Selina walked to him, head down, still smiling, and let herself be hugged.

A few seconds later, Bruce could feel tears seeping into the shoulder of his flannel shirt.

* * *

“So Ra’s al Ghul is controlling the Arkham Knight,” Stephanie asked.

“Right,” said Cassandra.

“The same Arkham Knight that killed Dick.”

“Right.”

“And while he’s been doing this, he’s been luring all of us here to put us in the firing line, up to and including me, as incentive for you to side up with him and kill the girl to whom you are also going to be the Evil Step-Grandmother of.”

Cassandra opened her mouth, closed it, and said “That hadn’t occurred to me, Steph, and thank you for putting the image in my head. Also yes.”

“And… he also set up this weapons deal specifically to lure me to Gotham.”

To Cassandra’s credit, she didn’t seem to want to shame Stephanie for pulling paid bodyguard work for bad guys.

“Yes,” Cassandra said.

“Uh-huh… Which side?”

Cassandra blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

Stephanie was about to say something when she heard the sound of breaking glass in the foyer. She stopped and looked out the door of the lounge, before turning and looking back.

“Which side?” Stephanie asked again. “The buyer or the seller? Because if it’s the buyer, then all Ra’s did was put me in a position to pocket six million dollars. Which I will gladly do, before I skip town, thus fucking up his entire plan.”

The conversation had gone into something that closely resembled a business negotiation.

And if there was anything Stephanie Brown was good at, it was negotiating business.

* * *

_Wow, _Cassandra thought. _Steph _sucks _at this._

Every mannerism was exaggerated, everything out of her mouth just a little too cute. She was trying to make herself seem cooler than she actually was. Which was fine. Everyone did it sooner or later. On occasion, Cassandra did it herself.

But the current case of Stephanie Brown was a little too pronounced. A little too fake. And Cassandra had to wonder whether or not it was always this bad.

_Was she always like this?_

_Was I friends with this person?_

“Steph,” Cassandra said, “it doesn’t work like that.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure it does.”

“This is _Ra’s al Ghul _we’re talking about,” Cassandra said. “He has a plan for everything. Including that.”

“Cass…”

“Steph, it’s a Shadow Density bullet.”

And that stopped Stephanie cold.

“The same kind of tech your father used to pull off Game Seven,” Cassandra said. “It’s an assassination plot in Kaznia to pull on the Justice League delegation that’ll oversee UN actions on the civil war over there. Do you really… _really… _want to make money off of something like that?”

Steph blinked. She sighed. And said:

“If the League knows about it. If ARGUS knows about it… Then they could do a whole lot more to stop it after the deal goes down than I could before it happens.”

_She’s lying._

_And she knows it._

That’s what did it.

Stephanie Brown may have hidden a whole lot from Cassandra back in the day, but one thing she never did was _lie._

But she lied now. And that’s what broke Cassandra Wayne’s heart.

A few seconds ago, when Stephanie diverted her gaze toward the sound of that broken glass in the foyer, Cassandra planted a Bat-Tracker in the pocket of Stephanie’s pea coat.

Cassandra didn’t feel bad about it anymore

Stephanie must have seen the way she was looking at her, because she almost seemed to cringe.

And that meant she was leaving.

“Look,” Stephanie said. “It’s been great, but I’m expecting a call, and I have to go.”

“Steph, you just got here.”

“And now I need to leave,” Stephanie said. “I paid my respects, I talked to everyone, I did my bit, and now I’m gone.”

Stephanie got up, and gave Cassandra one last look. From Cassandra’s point of view, it looked like she was dying inside.

“Take care of yourself, huh Cass?”

And out the door Stephanie Brown walked.

Every single fiber of Cassandra Wayne’s being wanted to get off that stool, go after her, grab her by her cheap-looking brown hair, and yell _“YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!” _

She wanted to be honest with her and tell her everything that was going on.

And she was going to do just that.

But as soon as she got to her feet… her phone vibrated in the pocket of her black sweater.

She fished it out.

It was Duke.

* * *

After she had reapplied her makeup (this being after the completely embarrassing and wholly uncharacteristic display with her husband in the master bedroom), Selina came back to the gathering, and was now deep in conversation at the top of the stairs in the foyer.

Selina was talking to, of all people, Starfire. Her girl Jess was with her… and that creepy chick Raven was hovering a few feet away for some strange reason.

“I apologize for ruining your wedding night,” Starfire said.

Which was a thing that happened. The last thing Starfire did at Selina and Bruce’s wedding reception was tell him how much she thought he sucked. But it was odd that this apology came now, fifteen years later, and so broadly.

“Uh-huh…” said Selina.

“It is strange,” said Starfire. “I have long been under the impression that my emotions enabled me to act without regret, and yet giving in to them on that night has gnawed at me for these many years.”

Selina just nodded, and said “‘Kay,” wondering just what in the fruit-flavored fuck was going on here.

Starfire was about to say something else, when someone down on the foyer floor spoke up.

“Everyone? Can I have your attention?”

It was Cassandra. And every eye in the room was upon her.

“I, uh… I know this has been a bad day,” Cassandra said, “And I don’t want want to add anything to that, but, uh… It looks like I have to.”

Cassandra sighed. If Selina didn’t know any better, it looked like she was going through a bout of stage fright.

Until Cassandra finally said:

“I just got a call from The Signal. Dick’s body has been stolen from the morgue.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, Gang.
> 
> I've just written twenty-thousand words in six days. That's seventy-six pages.
> 
> First, George R.R. Martin can suck it. I've done more writing in the last six days than I'm willing to bet he's done in the last six months. They're paying him millions upon millions of dollars, and I just have three regular commenters and a weirdly conspicuous number of guest kudos for all the work I've been putting in. I don't feel bad for that motherfucker at all. Tell him to get his sea captain-lookin' ass down to the keyboard and start bangin' 'em out. The audience for those books ain't gonna disappoint themselves.
> 
> Second, I'm going to be taking a break. There will be no Monday chapter.
> 
> I will see... you hookers... on Thursday.


	17. ...And a Free Air Freshener with Every Purchase

**Chapter 17: ...And a Free Air Freshener with Every Purchase**

**CITY HALL**

Harper Row left the wake at Wayne Manor shortly before sundown. She stopped by the apartment, changed her clothes, and got in her green Mazda (a cheap car was good with voters) to make her appointment as City Hall.

She got into the ground floor elevator precisely as the sun set. As the box rose, she sighed, closed her eyes, and tried to reckon with everything.

Assault, hostages, murder, and… body-snatching.

She’d gotten the story from Cassandra Wayne. Someone very strong had punched through the wall of the morgue and had taken Dick’s body. If that didn’t have _“Arkham Knight” _written all over it, she didn’t know what did.

The first forty-eight hours of supervillainy in the new, dying Gotham City.

The elevator dinged, and opened upon the top floor of Gotham’s City Hall.

Harper’s dark blue flats made echoes upon the marble floor as she made her way to the Mayor’s office. The hall seemed to narrow into a funnel, and at the end was Marcy the Mayor’s receptionist.

“Deputy Mayor Row,” Marcy said. “Good evening.”

Harper inwardly shuddered. As she always did when working stiffs like Marcy tried to get all formal with her. It was almost too much for a simple Bleake Island girl to take.

“I’m here for--”

“Yes,” Marcy said. “Mayor Yeoh is busy with Councilman Geffen downstairs at present, but she is expecting you. Go right on in and make yourself comfortable.”

“I’ll do that,” Harper said.

Marcy smiled behind her turtle-shell glasses, her auburn beehive hairdo (weirdly retro for someone in their thirties) bobbed as she moved her head. Harper made her way to the big white door that said:

_Alysia Yeoh  
_ _-MAYOR-_

The Gotham City Mayor’s Office was expansive, but drably and sparsely decorated. Shelves were lined with law books that had never been opened. The red, white and blue curtains had been up for so long that the white had turned yellow, which might lead a barely perceptive observer to deduce that this was a mayor’s office in Columbia or Romania, and not the United States.

Harper sat in the uncomfortable red leather chair in front of the mayor’s desk, and listlessly stared at the leather chair behind it, which looked a great deal more stuffed and butt-friendly.

After a few minutes, she heard the door open behind her, and an almost-rehearsed groan.

Alysisa Yeoh, tall and pretty, was the youngest mayor in Gotham’s history (at thirty-eight), as well as the only woman of Asian descent ever to be elected to the office. In addition, she was the first-ever transgender woman to ever be elected as mayor of a major metropolitan city.

And this woman, whom history seemed to favor, kicked her black high heels to the corner of the office, quietly saying _“Fuck” _to herself with each foot.

“Leesh,” Harper said.

To which Alysia replied “Harps.”

Alysia walked around the other side of the desk, taking off her black blazer, chucking it into a corner, and unbuttoning the top two buttons of her dark blue blouse. She collapsed into the chair behind the desk and sighed.

“Some legends are true,” Alysia said as she reached down to open a drawer on the desk. “One of which being that the bottom right drawer of the mayor’s desk is called…”

She came up holding a bottle of Glenlivet.

“... _’The James Gordon Suite.’ _ Tempted?”

“No, thank you,” said Harper. Alysia reached back down, fished out a slightly dusty glass, and poured herself a bit at room temperature with no ice.

Once Mayor Alysia Yeoh downed her hooch, she began.

“In three days,” Alysia said, “we have the unmanned tests for the new monorail system. Cheap and visible public transit. And safe. So people don’t have to huddle in piss-smelling underground subway stations. Try to reverse some of that apathy that’s hit Gotham like a truck since Game Seven.”

She poured herself a bit more.

“So now… of all times… my town has been hit with an epidemic of Cape Shit.”

Down the hatch the booze went.

“Now… I try to draw a line in the sand between _‘vigilantism,’ _and _‘Cape Shit.’ _ Vigilantism is freeform civilian assistance in law enforcement matters. Given how corrupt and shiftless the GCPD has a habit of being, they need all the help they can get. And does it improve matters that this help comes in the form of someone as cute and camera-friendly as The Signal? I’d say it does.”

Alysia smiled. Harper smiled back.. But then the smile slid off of Alysia’s face, and Harper had to ask herself what it all meant.

“And then,” Alysia said, “there’s Cape Shit. Cape Shit is nothing more than the battle of egos between people in stupid fucking costumes who think they’re better than us just because they can throw a punch. And the people on the ground, the people who pay their taxes, work hard, the people who graciously decided to elect me as their leader, _they’re _the ones who get hurt. They’re the ones who have their homes and businesses destroyed. They’re… the ones… who die.

Alysia poured herself her third drink. Harper remembered that before she was a politician, Alysia Yeoh used to be a bartender. That little tidbit certainly didn’t hurt in endearing her to working class voters. To Harper, that meant Mayor Yeoh could drink an entire posse of old-timey cowboys under the table and _still _have the presence of mind to keep an accurate count and face all the bills.

“I tell you,” Alysia said as she eyed her glass of Scotch. “I don’t mind some vigilantism every now and again. But man-oh-man, do I hate Cape Shit.”

_Gulp…_

“Let me ask you a question,” Alysia said. “Do you remember the Founders Island Riot?”

Harper tilted her head and squinted.

“Now I know,” Alysia said, “that when you think of Founders Island, you think of The _Battle _of Founders Island where a shitload of rock monsters killed a shitload of superheroes. The Founders Island Riot took place a year-and-a-half before that. During the time The Undying took control of the city.”

“I seem to remember it,” Harper said.

“Uh-huh… and where were you when The Undying did his thing? How did you ride it out?”

“I was stuck on a rooftop,” Harper said, “with my brother… and the guy who wound up being my ex-husband.”

“Tim?”

“That’s the one,” Harper said. “It’s how we met, actually.”

“That’s actually kind of cute,” Alysia said.

Harper didn’t comment one way or another. “And you?”

“I,” Mayor Alysia Yeoh said, “was on Founders Island starting a riot.”

Harper felt cold slime dribble down her back when she realized Alysia wasn’t joking. She had never told her this story before.

“Jo and I,” Alysia said, “were protesting at Stagg Industries the night the shit went down. Animal rights abuses. I remember looking on my phone, and seeing highlights from that press conference he held. The one that said he’d destroy the whole city unless one of us killed Batman… and then I looked up, and saw a lot of terrified people out in the streets that I just didn’t notice a second ago.”

Alysia’s face hardened. “Back in the day, I thought that the fact we had Batman as our superhero made us cooler than everyone else. _‘Oh, you’re from Coast City and you have a Green Lantern? You’re from Fawcett and you got Shazam? Fuck you, I’m from Gotham City.’”_

Harper noticed that hardened face of hers gradually turn into a scowl.

“But Batman came back after a three year hiatus,” Alysia said. “And he brought all his bullshit with him. And I remember Jo and I were walking down Penndecker Avenue, and we saw a crowd of people in front of that Batman theme restaurant they used to have. _‘Batburger,’ _it was called. Everyone _knew _Batman wasn’t actually in there, but no one cared. It was this big capitalist beacon right there on Founders Island, designed to make money off of misery. A shrine to a guy whose presence meant that safety in Gotham City was a fucking crap shoot. And I remember this… _feeling _welling up in me. I walked around to the alley beside the place, and came back with a trash can. Through the window it went, and people just went pouring through on broken glass. And that’s how the Founders Island Riot started.”

Harper was convinced that Alysisa wasn’t lying. Not that she’d ever lie about something like this.

Alysia folded her hands on the desk. “I threw that trash can because I was angry and scared. And you wanna know something?”

“What?”

“I never _stopped _being angry and scared. Not about Cape Shit, anyway.”

If there is such a thing as _“concerned side-eye,” _Harper gave it to Alysia. The mayor of Gotham City was almost seething at her desk.

But then Alysia pushed herself back into her chair, and sniffed. Already her cheeks were beginning to redden from the booze.

“I’ve given the order,” Alysia said. “It’s going from Police Commissioner Montoya on down. Anyone in Gotham City who has been arrested for or wanted in connection with costumed activity will be taken in for questioning. We have murder, terrorist activities, and now body-snatching going on in our town, and that shit ain’t playing on my watch.”

“Who does that leave us with?” Harper asked.

“A few of the old ex-villains,” Alysia said. “Doesn’t leave us with a whole lot, but at least it’s something. But the most high-profile one of their number I am gonna have to handle with kid gloves. That one being… Selina Wayne.”

Harper actually flinched. “Selina?”

“Good ol’ Catwoman,” said Alysia. “Did a six month jolt for stealing shit off of Mallory Moxon’s yacht twenty-seven years ago. Batman stopped her. That’s how we know her name in the first place. Now, we can’t just take her off the street and haul her in. Someone as connected and famous and rich as her? It has to be _oh-so-politely suggested _that she come down to City Hall the day after tomorrow for a little AM Q&A session with GCPD personnel… which a Lieutenant from the Gotham Major Crimes Unit has been dispatched to Wayne Manor to do as we sit here talking.”

Harper nodded and said “Uh-huh.” Hoping, as she did so, that they got Crush, Starfire, Raven, and Detective Chimp out of the house. They were the conspicuous ones, after all.

Alysia sat back, arms folded. “Your brother is Selina Wayne’s butler isn’t he?”

Harper nodded.

“And your ex-husband Tim Drake is a former Wayne Enterprises employee?”

“Yeah.”

“And you were at the Gotham Royal when this whole thing started.”

“It was for the Pennyworth Fund,” Harper said. “I’m a supporter of the arts.”

“It’s weird, though. This morning, you dismissed your security detail. Now that was less than a day after two of said detail saw you at the Gotham Royal using martial arts to kung-fu three bad guys into the floor.”

There was that cold slime again. “Now you know why I dismissed them. I’m not supposed to be protecting myself out there.”

“Uh-huh,” Alysia said. “Now, because you dismissed that detail, then, well, we have no city-sanctioned employees to give us your whereabouts for earlier today. But if I were a betting woman, I’d lay the house payment on you being at Wayne Manor, commiserating with your brother’s boss over the loss of Dick Grayson… yet _another _Wayne associate whose body was stolen from the morgue this afternoon.”

She leaned back. “Hell of a thing,” said Alysia. “Working class girl trying to save Bleake Island, but for the better part of two decades, she’s been asshole-deep in Waynes.”

Harper didn’t say anything. Alysia folded her hands over her stomach.

“I’m just doing the math here,” Alysia said. “Back in the day, Gotham City was just _pissing _teenage superheroes. We had Robin, we had Batgirl, we had Spoiler, we had Orphan… but if you had to ask me my favorite of the bunch, it was probably Bluebird.”

Harper successfully (and wisely) fought off the urge to say _“Wow, thanks, not a whole lot of people say that.”_

Alysia put her elbows on the desk, and folded her hands.

“I have two questions,” she said. “The first is… Is there anything you want to tell me?”

“No,” Harper said without blinking. She’d had fifteen years to practice.

“Okay,” Alysia said, apparently satisfied. “The second question is… Can you keep it that way for three more days?”

The message was more than clear. Something about Harper stank, but Alysia would put it aside if they could get through the monorail tests without incident.

So Harper shrugged, and said…

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but yeah, I can manage.”

...while hoping that she looked and sounded convincing.

* * *

**THE KLAYMAN DAIRY PLANT**

While she had been waiting outside of Wayne Manor for her cab, still stinging from her conversation with Cassandra Wayne, when she got the call from Jerry Timo.

_“We have a location,” _he had said. _ “And a time. Nine at the Klayman Dairy Plant. Zander and I will pick you up at eight.”_

The cab came, took her to her hotel room, and Stephanie changed out of her wake clothes and into her work clothes.

A green t-shirt beneath her black pea coat, and tucked into a pair of loose-fitting Levi’s jeans.

A studded black leather belt from Ariat. A handy melee weapon if shitty came to shittier.

A pair of steel toe boots from The North Face. If circumstances dictated she needed to kick someone, by God Stephanie wanted them to feel it.

And of course, beneath that black pea coat, a Sig Sauer P365 XL. It held twelve nine millimeter bullets in a steel magazine, and one more in the chamber of the weapon itself. Her old Spoiler days told her where all the illegal guns could be bought in Gotham City, and all these years later, those locations never changed. She had picked it up before the wake from a dealer in one of the seedier out-of-season sections of Amusement Mile, and had even packed the damn thing at the wake. She hated the fact that some of her hard-earned dollars were most likely going to go into the pocket of The Penguin (who, even after all these years, still held the monopoly on hot guns in Gotham City), but if that was the way it had to be, then that was the way it was.

Full-well was Batman’s issue with firearms known, but Stephanie never entirely held it. It was nice that a superhero could get the job done without shortcuts… but Stephanie wasn’t a superhero anymore. No matter how far she may have tried to remove herself from the criminality of her criminal enterprises, she was a criminal all the same. And despite the fact that she’d never had to pull a piece, let alone fire it, she was a bodyguard. And bodyguards protected their clients at all costs.

Eight came around. Jerry Timo and Zander Kalchik picked her up from the Gotham Hilton (in a Rolls Royce, of all fucking things), and off they drove, in silence, to the Klayman Dairy Plant on Bleake Island.

Stephanie had broken up any number of deals back when she was Spoiler. She knew how this all played out from this end. They’d go to some old abandoned shithole and do their deal.

But the thing that surprised Stephanie once they got to the Klayman Dairy Plant was that it was not abandoned at all. It was still fully functional, still providing the areas of Gotham and Bludhaven with milk and ice cream and yogurt, still had the fucking lights on.

“You picked a place that was still operational to do this?” Stephanie asked.

“Indeed I did, Miss Venora,” Zander said, his Kaznian accent thicker than the sour cream that this place most likely made . “It is far easier and far more sensible to pay off a few night watchmen than it is to scout a shadowy location that provides ample opportunity for foul play. This way, we are all honest.”

“Uh-huh,” said Stephanie. She had spent most of the day being called _“Stephanie” _that she blinked uncomprehendingly when she heard the guy call her _“Miss Venora.” _

“You have my payment for when this is all done?”

“Oh, of course,” Zander said. “Both for yourself and for you, Mister Timo. Ready to be wired to the offshore or Swiss account of your choosing. Again, we are all honest.”

“You hear that?” Jerry asked. “‘We are all honest.’”

“Whatever,” Stephanie said. “I just want to get paid and get out of this shithole town.”

The three of them walked around to the rear of the plant, and through a side door in the loading bay. From there, they walked into the plant proper.

It was cold in here. It had to be. This place made dairy products to be shipped elsewhere for packaging. The large and shiny metal cooling tanks gently gurgled. The air conditioning was so oppressive that Stephanie could see her own breath.

Standing between two of the giant cooling tanks were three people.

The first was a rather slender fellow in his late thirties with lank brown hair. He was wearing a cheap and ratty brown suit and a black tie.

Stephanie did not know this person.

To this gentleman’s left was a mountain of a man, seven feet tall and bald with a black chin-strap beard. He was wearing a red tracksuit over his threateningly muscular frame, and his eyes were the blue of melting ice floes.

Stephanie did not know this person either.

The one to that gentleman’s left, however, was as squat and short as his associate was tall and burly. Long black greasy hair, veined with gray, flowed from beneath a black top hat. He was wearing a tuxedo flecked with stray food stains beneath a black overcoat. He had a monocle over the left of his shark-like black eyes, and his long, thin nose protruded a couple of inches from his corpulent face. He rested his hands on an umbrella, the tip of which rested on the floor. This unsightly fellow stood there like a sentinel guarding a God’s secrets.

Stephanie knew this man _very _well. She had spent a couple of her more fun teenage years with her friends beating the shit out of this guy’s henchmen.

“Mister Cobblepot,” Zander said. “To what do I owe this distinct pleasure?”

“When a high-end item such as this leaves my city,” The Penguin said, “I find that the use of intermediaries simply will not do. The more personal touch is called for.”

“Do you have it?” Jerry asked. “Do we have what we came here for?”

The Penguin smiled, before turning to the man in the ratty suit. “Doctor Chambers used to be on the defense designs team at LexCorp.”

“Yeah,” said this Doctor Chambers fellow. “Before Selina Wayne came in and shat all over everything. Sucks to be her, though. A couple of things went missing before she got to our department.”

With that, Doctor Chambers took a small black box out of the pocket of his jacket, and opened it for all to see.

Inside was a small transparent capsule, the black and silver liquid inside roiling and pulsating.

Stephanie’s stomach dropped.

“A Shadow Density bullet,” The Penguin said. “The only one of its kind. A touch of Gotham’s Game Seven fit for the royal family of Kaznia… or whichever costumed avenger sticks their nose into international politics.”

Cassandra had been telling the truth. These assholes really had a Shadow Density bullet. Her father’s appalling legacy was for sale, and she was getting paid six million dollars to stand by and make sure the transaction went through.

She had the urge, terrifying in its enormity, to drop every last motherfucker in the room and steal the bullet. Hide it where no one could find it. Chuck it into the ocean.

But even though she knew she could do that if she damn well pleased, she also knew that such an action would effectively be signing the death warrants of Jerry Timo and Zander Kalchik. She knew how The Penguin operated. He’d send Zander’s head to the Kaznian Royal Palace. He’d torture Jerry’s wife to death right in front of him before jamming an ice pick into both of his eyes so it really would be the last thing he ever saw on this Earth.

When she’d told Cassandra at Dick’s wake that the Justice League and ARGUS could do more about a hypothetical Shadow Density bullet than she could at the sale, it felt like a lie to placate her own guilty conscience.

She hoped it wasn’t a lie now.

“Are you interested in doing business?” The Penguin asked.

“I certainly am,” said Zander.

Before Zander could even reach for his phone, however, the seven-foot-tall man in the track suit said, in a deep voice well-marbled in a Russian dialect:

“Double.”

Zander froze. “I beg your pardon?”

“My associate,” The Penguin said. “Mister Vladislav Dutt. He comes bearing new terms.”

“You pay double,” Vladislav Dutt said. “Or you don’t get bullet.”

“Hey,” Stephanie said. “Your seven-foot-tall pigshit sculpture isn’t speaking a language I’ve ever heard before. It sounds an awful lot like you’re trying to fuck us with neither consent nor lube.”

The Penguin just rolled his eyes.

But Vladislav Dutt slowly walked in between Stephanie and The Penguin, right up to her. He was just inches away.

He had almost a foot-and-a-half on Stephanie, and he used all of it, looking down his nose at her, and sneering.

“You pay double,” he said, even lower than the first time. “Or you don’t get bullet.”

“Uh-huh,” Stephanie said. “You mind answering a question?”

Vladislav Dutt said nothing. Not that she actually needed him to.

“Is it possible,” Stephanie asked, “to talk shit with no teeth?”

Vladislav Dutt smiled, apparently bemused. 

He blinked as he did so.

And that blink was all Stephanie needed.

As fast as lightning, she brought the steel toe of her right steel toe boot hard into Vladislav Dutt’s left knee.

He buckled, he hissed, he hunched over, but he didn’t fall.

Then came a right hook directly into his Adam’s apple.

And that dropped him.

He was on one knee, clutching his throat and struggling to breathe. He was at the right height for Stephanie to lace the fingers of both of her hands around the side of Vladislav Dutt’s head, and start pummeling his cheekbone, temple, nose, and mouth with right knees.

_One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten _of them in rapid succession.

The face of Vladislav Dutt had instantly started to bloom with bruises. His left eye was already beginning to swell shut. His nose was broken at the bridge, and pouring blood all over the front of his tracksuit. He listed to his right, and his shoulder softly collided with one of the silver cooling tanks. It was the only thing keeping him up.

Stephanie took a couple of steps back, and launched a high kick with her right steel toe boot directly into the side of Vladislav Dutt’s mouth.

_BWONGGGGG!_

Her boot hit his head, and his head hit the metal tank.

Stephanie noticed the spatter of blood (and the dent) on the cooling tank as Vladislav Dutt fell face-first to the red tile floor with a wet, meaty thud.

She looked down at him.

“Got anything else to say, kitten?”

Vladislav Dutt did not, nor could not, say anything.

Stephanie looked at the blood spatter on the cooling tank, and noticed a lump.

It was a tooth.

She carefully picked it off the bloody exterior of the cooling tank.

“Hmm,” she said. “I guess you really _can’t _talk shit with no teeth.”

She threw it at The Penguin. It left a red mark on his white tuxedo shirt before it rebounded and fell to the floor.

The four conscious men in the room looked at Stephanie in disbelief. She thought they should. She had, after all, just chopped down a tree.

But The Penguin was disbelieving and _angry._

“Such barbarity,” The Penguin said through gritted teeth, “is not the way to get a deal done.”

“Unless you want double,” Stephanie said. “Is that right? You’ll get what was agreed upon, and you’ll cough up the bullet. Otherwise, things’ll get…”

The lights went out.

Immediately, instinctively, Stephanie retraced her steps at high speed through the pitch black darkness, into the loading bay, and through the door that took her back to the night air.

Because when the lights went out over shady dealings in Gotham City, that meant only one person had just shown up.

If Stephanie just started handing out ass-kickings and took the bullet, that would reflect badly on her. So badly that it would have lethal repercussions for the people who brought her into the deal.

But if the deal underwent a sudden Bat infestation, then that would reflect badly upon The Penguin. Stephanie would suffer a horrible blow to her reputation (or rather Natalie Venora would) if she bailed at the first sign of a Bat, but at the very least no one would die.

She felt she didn’t need to be here for this.

Stephanie was running across the gravel of the plant’s rear, when she stopped, her mind on fire with just one question.

_How?_

How did Cassandra know she’d be here when _she _didn’t even know she’d be here?

Stephanie reached into her pockets. She felt, in the right pocket of her pea coat, her finger brush against something thin and adhesive. Like a sticker. She peeled it off the interior of her pocket, and brought it out to look at.

It was transparent, and veined with high-tech circuitry.

It was a tracker.

She had been lojacked by her old best friend. At a wake for a mutual friend, no less.

So there stood Stephanie Brown, next to the showy Rolls Royce that brought her here. A vehicle for which she did not have the keys.

She was out a ride back to the hotel.

She was out six million dollars.

And she was _furious._

* * *

Black Bat had been on the roof of the Gotham Hilton when Jerry Timo and Zander Kalchik picked up Stephanie to take her to the deal.

She followed the Rolls Royce from above, in the cloaked Batwing. She ejected from the bottom of the cockpit, used her cape to glide down to the roof of the Klayman Dairy Plant, and set audio feelers on the roof.

Black Bat stealthily ran off the roof, dropped down to ground level, and picked the lock of the front door of the plant with a pick from her utility belt.

It just took one pick this time. _Thanks, Selina!_

She hit the thermals on the lenses in her cowl, and saw that there was a fuse box in the maintenance room in the hall just off the lobby, and right next to the open area just off the wide open room where the deal was going down.

And that fuse box just so happened to feeding the lights in the cooling tank area.

She hustled down the hall and picked the lock to the maintenance room _(Again, just one!). _ As she did, the audio feelers on the roof picked up a brawl going on in the cooling tank room. From the sound of things, Stephanie both started it… and ended it.

Rather than just yank fuses out, she set up a gadget that Luke Fox, its inventor, called _“The Lights Out Box.” _ It not only blew the fuses, but blew whatever those fuses ran.

This included the lights in the cooling tank room, and the security cameras on the ground floor. They’d pick up nothing from what was about to happen.

Black Bat set a five second timer on the Lights Out Box.

Lights Out.

Curtains Up.

Black Bat barreled into the cooling tank room, careful to be quiet. Her thermals picked up five people inside. All male.

_No Steph…_

One of them, a gentleman with whom Stephanie arrived, yanked a gun from beneath his jacket and started brandishing it.

_“The Bat ain’t fucking this deal!” _he yelled.

And then he fired.

In the pitch black.

Black Bat did not know whether to marvel at this guy’s stupidity, or marvel at the fact that his first shot was almost a lucky one. The bullet didn’t hit her, but it did hit the cooling tank behind her. From the brand new hole in the tank came forth a stream of lukewarm and untreated milk, which got all over Black Bat’s armor.

_This suit’s gonna reek if I don’t clean it the second I get back…_

She bounded off the wall, and climbed atop the ruptured tank. She waited for the next shot…

**BANG!**

...before leaping from the tank and putting a hefty portion of her force into a flying kick to his head.

One down, four to go.

Off in the corner, she saw a red shape of heat cowering against the wall. He was holding a small box out in front of him as though it were a crucifix, and he was warding off a vampire instead of a superhero.

He didn’t appear to be armed…

...but then again, if what was in the box was the Shadow Density bullet, then he was the guy who stole it and put it on the market, knowing full well what it would do in the wrong hands.

So fuck him.

Black Bat bolted across the room, and drove a knee into his gut. He passed out from pain and shock before he hit the ground.

As she turned, she saw that the seven foot tall fellow who had been unconscious on the floor a few seconds ago, was now standing up. All he had time to get out of his mouth was...

_“Guh?”_

...before Black Bat activated the shock protocol on her gauntlets and pressed both hands to his chest, pumping him full of voltage.

Back to dreamland he went.

Just then, a reedy voice of a man trying desperately (and failing) to maintain an air of authority made itself known.

And it had a Kaznian accent.

“May I have your attention?” he asked. “My name is Zander Kalchik! I am a diplomat, hailing from the sovereign nation of Kaznia! I am under the purview of American laws pertaining to diplomatic immunity! Any harm that comes to my person is an illegal act, and shall be construed by the royal family of Kaznia as an _act of war!”_

Black Bat, who had nimbly snuck behind him while he was delivering his little speech, whispered in his ear.

_“We’ll see about that.”_

Black Bat reared back, and drove her forehead into the occipital bulge on the back of his skull.

She liked that part of the body. It was like an off button.

Zander Kalchik melted to the floor.

That meant there was just one left.

**BANG!**

The Penguin was in between two columns of cooling tanks, firing his parasol rifle into the air. If Black Bat had to guess, it was because the muzzle flash provided a split second of light. He wanted to see what was coming.

Not that it would actually help him.

She bounded off of one tank to climb to the top of the one across from it. From above, she stalked her prey.

_“Years!” _The Penguin yelled. 

**BANG!**

_“Decades!” _

**BANG!**

“You have been _hounding _me!”

**BANG!**

_“Hurting _me!”

**BANG!**

“Taking my _merchandise!”_

**BANG!**

“Stealing my money for almost _thirty years, _Batman!” 

**BANG!**

“Hasn’t it gotten _old?”_

**BANG!**

“Aren’t you _done _yet?”

**BANG!**

“Isn’t this whole thing… just… _childish?”_

_Click!_

Out of bullets.

And it happened on such an inviting line, too.

Black Bat leapt from the tank, and silently landed in front of The Penguin. She reached out and wrapped her hand around the long, thin beak protruding from his face.

_“Got your nose, Oswald,” _she whispered.

She then proceeded to yank down until she heard cartilage snap and blood spill.

**“AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!”** the Penguin shrieked. ** “BY DOSE!”**

Black Bat let go of his nose, reared back, and rocked the side of The Penguin’s face with a right hook. It was a fast and hard one, so much so that she heard the telltale tinkle of falling glass. 

She had shattered his monocle.

Cassandra Wayne smiled behind her mask.

She’d always wanted to do that, you see.

* * *

**THE RH KANE BUILDING**

Cassandra spent the forty-five minutes after she got back to Batcave North beneath her apartment building taking off the exterior plates of her armor one by one, and cleaning from their surface stale and crusty milk. The suit protected her, but maintenance was a bitch.

After that, she took off the interior suit, put it back on the armor rack, and hopped into the shower.

She tried to enter a meditative state amidst the steam and hot water. She tried to forget about the wake. About Ra’s al Ghul. About the Arkham Knight. About Dick.

About Steph.

And hey, it almost worked.

She turned off the water, stepped out, and dried herself off. On went a pair of plain white cotton underwear, and a pair of black sweatpants.

As she was putting on a forest green bra that she only vaguely remembered buying online sometime in the past year, she was wondering why she was putting it on in the first place. The Signal was out there patrolling tonight. The city was covered, and they both knew this had been a taxing day for her. All that was in the cards for the rest of the evening was going to bed.

She briefly thought about taking it off again, but now that it was on, well, such a proposition just seemed like too much work.

Cassandra put on a red and black flannel shirt, buttoned it up, put on a pair of soft and cushy moccasins that she’d bought in Gotham Village a few months ago, and walked to the elevator that took her up to her floor.

She walked down the carpeted hallway to her apartment, and… stopped.

There had to be at least some level of instinct involved as a crimefighter. Some head for intangibles and X factors. There had to be a _feel_ for things.

And something was off here.

She reached out, grabbed hold of the doorknob, and turned.

And the unlocked door gave no resistance whatsoever.

_Yup, _she thought. _ It’s official._

For the second time in as many evenings, someone had broken into Cassandra Wayne’s apartment.


	18. The First Language of Cassandra Cain

**Chapter 18: The First Language of Cassandra Cain**

Cassandra closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

She imagined herself picking up all of the things she had been thinking about, putting them into little boxes, and walking away.

_“Once you lock all that stuff away,” _her actor friend Kevin Ulrich had once told her, _“then you can do the job with purity.”_

_Don’t act, _Cassandra thought. _React._

She opened the door to her apartment.

“Alfred, lights.”

Illumination followed.

Stephanie Brown did not have the aspiration toward grandeur that Ra’s al Ghul had when he had broken in the night before. She did not sit at the head of the kitchen table, rather opting to sit in the middle chair on the left side, her back toward the rest of the apartment. Her black pea coat was draped over the chair to her left.

Cassandra took a brief measure of Stephanie’s posture and attitude before she did anything else. Stephanie was wearing a green t-shirt tucked into a pair of loose-fitting jeans, with a studded black leather belt to round it off. Her boots looked like they were made for kicking ass, and if the audio feelers she had set up on the roof of the Klayman Dairy Plant were any indication, then that is precisely what she had done at the meet.

She was hunched over, elbows on the table, hands folded, staring at the wall across from her.

Cassandra closed the door behind her, and leaned against the wall next to the door frame.

“Stephanie.”

Steph didn’t even bother looking at her. “Cassandra.”

A silence followed.

“So in addition to doing grunt work on arms deals,” Cassandra said, “now you add B&E?”

“I entered,” Stephanie said, “but I didn’t break.”

She opened her hands, revealing a key.

“Kate gave me this key,” Stephanie said. “Back in the old days. In case I wanted to have a girl over when she wasn’t in town.”

Stephanie threw the key near Cassandra. It bounced off the wall next to her neck, before it rebounded off her left shoulder, and fell to the carpet.

“Change your locks, you jackass,” Stephanie said, before she resumed her last position, hands folded, staring at the nothing in front of her.

More silence followed. After a while, Stephanie broke it herself.

“Do I need to tell you how fucked I am after the stunt you pulled tonight?”

“Go ahead,” said Cassandra. “I wasn’t doing anything else this evening. By all means, tell me how much you think I suck.”

Only now did Stephanie deign to look at her.

“I operate under an assumed name,” Stephanie said. “Natalie Venora. Natalie Venora has developed a reputation all over the world for the services she rendered for going on thirteen years now. That reputation is now in the shitter after she ran from a six million dollar payday at the first sign of a Bat. How am I gonna square that with future clients, huh? No matter how much they pay me, it’s conditional as long as a cape doesn’t show up?”

“You were doing dirty in Gotham City,” Cassandra said. “You had to know this was coming.”

“It wouldn’t have come,” Stephanie said, “if you had _trusted _me. But you didn’t trust me, did you? You put a tracker in my fucking _coat!”_

“You’re right,” Cassandra said. “I didn’t trust you. Would you like to know why?”

“Because being the head Bat in Gotham means you have to develop a holier-than-thou streak?”

“Oh, I could have put up with the arms deal,” Cassandra said. “Bruce put up with Selina for over a decade for doing a whole lot worse.”

Cassandra took a few steps into the apartment.

“I put the tracker on you because you lied to me.”

Stephanie sniffed, and Cassandra could see she was trying to mount a defense. “You know it’s funny? I leave here and you could barely say a word. I come back fourteen years later, and nothing but bullshit comes out of your mouth.”

“Back in the old days, you hid a lot,” Cassandra said. “You dissembled, you omitted, you obfuscated, sure.

_“‘Obfuscated?’”_

“But you never _lied _to me,” Cassandra said. “You never looked me in the eye and told me something you yourself knew wasn’t true. Until Dick’s wake. Until today. You _desperately _tried to make it as though that deal wasn’t your problem, and you tried to torch yourself in my eyes to do it.”

Stephanie just sneered, and looked back at the wall.

“Now,” said Cassandra. “Would you like to know what happened after you left?”

“No.”

“Tim was confused,” Cassandra said. “So was Harper. But at least they had each other to fall back on. In the first few days after you left, Kate went on a shopping spree for clothes and food. The stuff you liked. Because she was convinced you were coming back, and she wanted to make you nice and comfortable when you did.”

Stephanie didn’t say anything. Cassandra walked right behind her chair.

“And then… there was Selina.”

Stephanie craned to look at her. Something was about to come out of her mouth, most likely profane. But in the end, she choked it back, and stared at the wall some more.

“Selina didn’t say a word,” Cassandra said. “She’ll go on and on about stupid bullshit, but when something really fronts her, she’ll keep her mouth shut. I know that’s how she is… and so do you. That is how much you hurt her. And when Bruce adopted me, it was like some of her spirit left her body. Because her husband got something that she didn’t.”

She saw Stephanie clench a fist.

“And let’s not forget,” Cassandra said, “your best friend. The one who couldn’t write? Could barely read and talk? The one who didn’t have a single fucking clue what was going on? The one lugging that book of Shakespeare around and waited in that Goddamn mansion for days hoping you returned? Yeah, she did just fine. You ditching her didn’t fuck her up at _all.”_

Cassandra walked into the adjacent kitchen to get a glass of water. She had gotten a small glass out of the cabinet above the sink when Stephanie decided to speak again.

“So if I stayed, what would have happened?”

This struck Cassandra in an odd way. In a way she didn’t feel as though she could be struck. The answer was so obvious, but Stephanie just didn’t get it.

Cassandra turned to face her. “We would have _helped _you, Steph. The same way Bruce helped me. We brought Jason Todd in from the cold after you left. I see no reason why you’d be any different.”

And with that, Cassandra turned and put her glass beneath the ice dispenser in her fridge. The cubes were done hitting glass when Stephanie spoke yet again.

“That’s right,” she said. “I’m not the only murderer in the room, now am I?”

Cassandra had frozen, her hand an inch away from the water dispenser on the fridge.

“We both killed and ran,” Stephanie said. “The way I see it is… when I ran off, it was after I stopped the bad guy. Not before. You killed someone, and instead of stopping your father, you ran in fear.”

Cassandra’s chest was a forge, boiling molten anger. Images of the man in Macau whose throat she had torn out, on her father’s orders when she was nine, emerged from their shallow grave.

“You ever get to thinking about what would have happened if you stopped your dad?” Stephanie asked. “Put him in jail? You ever get to thinking how different things would be if he _wasn’t _one of Harmonia’s recruits before the Battle of Founders Island? Think Aquaman would still be running around? How about Beast Boy and Miss Martian? Knight and Squire? Blue Devil? You think the Amazons of the Bana-Mighdall would look kindly on you, knowing your inaction when you were a kid would eventually cost them Artemis?”

No, she had not, in fact, thought of these things. But she was thinking of them now.

She turned to look at her, and the quivering of Stephanie’s brow told Cassandra one thing.

That not even Stephanie believed what she was saying.

_More lies. Jesus.. _. 

But Cassandra made a conscious decision to pour a rapid of water over that furnace in her chest, Stephanie was trying to bait her into a screaming match. And she wasn’t falling for it. She put her glass under the water dispenser, and got her drink in silence.

The stomping of boots came from behind Cassandra, and stopped a few inches away. Cassandra turned around to see Stephanie Brown as a wall of fury. The vein in her right temple was throbbing, her blue eyes burnt cold.

Apparently, having failed in her prior attempt to force conflict, Stephanie had decided upon a new tack. 

“You wanted to help me, huh?” Stephanie asked. “I don’t need _your _fucking help. I never have. I wasn’t kung-fu Jesus like you were. I didn’t have Tim’s detective skills, or Harper’s head for machinery, or Kate’s military training. But I laid that piece of shit Damian Wayne out by myself, when everyone would have tried to stop me. I beat the man who beat The Bat.”

Stephanie scratched her nose, still keeping unblinking eye-contact.

“Everyone tried to protect me from myself,” she said. “Because I was the one who didn’t have the advantages everyone else did. Spoiler was the one who sucked, and everyone knew it. It wasn’t true then… And it isn’t true now.”

Cassandra tried to peer through her. “You feel better now?”

Stephanie didn’t say anything.

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “Go run, Steph. It’s what you’re good for.”

She raised her glass of water to her lips…

...only for Stephanie to snatch it out of her hand and fling it at the kitchen wall. The air came alive with the sound of shattering glass, falling ice cubes, and splashing water.

There was a brief moment of shock, but that cooled as Cassandra realized something.

This fuming, furious woman in her kitchen… was the Stephanie Brown who left fourteen years ago.

Cassandra had no idea who the stranger at Dick Grayson’s wake was, nor the charlatan who had tried to bait her with lies mere moments before, but this ball of anger before her was her old best friend.

And even in the thickness of tension, even with dragging personal topics into the light, even with the threat of violence… It really was nice to see her again.

Stephanie opened her mouth and said… something. To Cassandra’s ear, it sounded like Russian.

“Russian proverb,” Stephanie said. _ “‘Underestimating an enemy is the last thing a stupid person does before they die.’”_

_Oh… So it’s like that, huh?_

“As I seem to recall,” Cassandra said, “we used to spar all the time back in the day, and you never once landed a shot on me. Stephanie… is this _really _a road you want to go down?”

Stephanie leaned in.

“Yup.”

Something clattered on the floor. Cassandra, in the moment, thought it might have been an ice cube, which had landed on the sink but finally made its journey to the linoleum… but it sounded too small for that.

She looked down.

There was a small black pellet between her two moccasins. 

It almost looked like a flashb--

**FWOOM!**

Yep. Flashbang.

Cassandra’s ears started ringing. Her vision became a field of white. And through the ivory blindfold, a fist came crashing into her jaw.

Normally, it would have knocked her back. But being as she’d been leaning against the sink, there was no back to be knocked to. Her lower back seemingly wrapped around the counter, and onto her ass she went.

The white started to gray out, but she still couldn’t see Stephanie’s boot come in and kick her in the forehead so hard that her cranium rocked back and shattered the wood of the cabinet door beneath the sink.

She’d sparred with Stephanie for years without her once landing a blow on Cassandra, only for her to come back after a fourteen year hiatus and get two successful shots off in less than five seconds.

The white pall had cleared enough for her to see Stephanie (having tucked her ponytail into the back of her t-shirt, which was a smart move) coming in for another field goal.

Cassandra got out of the way in the nick of time, leaving Stephanie to get her boot caught in the hole that Cassandra’s head had left in the cabinet door.

Still on her ass, Cassandra launched her left foot hard into Stephanie’s midsection. Stephanie doubled over to the extent that Cassandra sent her right foot into the side of Stephanie’s face.

Stephanie’s right shoulder collided with the wall, but she did not go down. She used the momentum to roll herself down the wall, still standing, and further into the apartment, right in front of the kitchen table.

Cassandra got up, careful to mind the broken glass on the kitchen floor. This was ugly now, but she didn’t want this situation to get _grotesque._

She pursued her quarry, and threw a right that Stephanie blocked. She read Stephanie’s body language, saw that a right hook was coming…

...only to be completely surprised by Stephanie’s left knee driving directly into her gut.

As she gasped for air, she was shocked by the fact that she didn’t see that one coming.

And that gasping for air cost Cassandra a left hook to the temple that drove her to one knee.

With all her might, Cassandra sprang up, putting considerable weight and speed into a right punch.

And that punch Stephanie dodged, in so doing grabbing Cassandra by the collar of her flannel shirt with one hand, and the waistband of her sweatpants with the other. She used Cassandra’s momentum to send her through the kitchen table.

The table disintegrated in a shower of cheap wood. The impact tremor knocked four of the eight chairs over.

Stephanie came in with a stomp, only for Cassandra to wrap both of her hands around her ankle, and twist.

She yelped, but Stephanie gave up the high ground to roll through it, diving to the floor to somersault through the shards of what used to be a table.

They both struggled to their feet.

Cassandra got to a standing position first.

She brought a fist down, aiming for Stephanie’s head. Stephanie brought up her forearms to block the shot… leaving most of her upper body exposed. Cassandra dropped a hard left right into Stephanie’s upper sternum, the thump sounding like a bomb going off.

Stephanie almost wrapped around Cassandra’s fist, and Cassandra used this split-second of down-time to deliver a lunge kick into Stephanie’s forehead.

Stephanie did not _collide _with the apartment door.

No, Stephanie _went through _the apartment door.

There was now a Stephanie Brown-shaped hole in the door, with Stephanie prone on the carpet of the well-lit hallway outside.

Cassandra ducked through the hole, ventured into the hallway, and looked at what she had done.

Stephanie was on her knees, holding her recently dented ribcage.

“Oh, Jesus…”

Cassandra walked to her. The closer she got, the more she could hear the pathetic gurgling noises that Steph was making. She reached out.

“Steph? Are… Are you…”

And that strange phenomenon of not being able to see Stephanie Brown’s moves in advance occurred again.

Stephanie had put so much of her energy into ostentatiously shaking her shoulders down there on the ground that Cassandra was unable to read that she would crane her neck upwards and bite down hard on the pinky and ring fingers of Cassandra’s left hand.

Cassandra cried out.

Not in pain.

In _shock._

_“OWWWWWWWW! FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK!”_

Cassandra was at a loss as to how to proceed. It wasn’t though as though she could punch Steph in the face to make her let go. She was dug in deep enough that she could lose those two fingers if she did that.

It took a second to solve the puzzle.

She reached back into the back of Stephanie’s t-shirt, grabbed a handful of brown-dyed ponytail, and started dragging her toward the door of the apartment across the hall.

Cassandra figured that Stephanie knew her well enough to know that she was physically capable of scalping Stephanie with one bare hand. So, in a different but no less precariously positioned canoe on Shit Creek as Cassandra was at present, opted to move with her.

In hindsight, though, it could be theorized that if she had known what was in store, Stephanie would have stayed put and took her chances.

Because Cassandra knew something Stephanie did not.

Cassandra knew that, because all of the other apartments on this floor were unoccupied, all of the apartment doors were unlocked.

She reached out and opened it.

Stephanie bit down a little bit harder when she realized what was coming, but it was too late.

Cassandra brought her knee into Steph’s to set her up, whereupon she started slamming the open apartment door on Stephanie’s head.

It took one…

**WHAM!**

...two…

**WHAM!**

_...three shots…_

**WHAM!**

...before Stephanie finally let go.

The blows to the head dropped Stephanie to one knee. Cassandra used a bit of what she thought was down time to attempt to look at her recently masticated fingers.

She saw that they didn’t look too bad, before she paid for her foolishness with a right to the gut.

It doubled her over, before Stephanie landed a palm strike right to Cassandra’s forehead.

That palm strike hurt.

The back of her head colliding with the door frame hurt worse.

Cassandra didn’t wait for the stars to clear. She put her weight into a haymaker that Stephanie ducked, before Stephanie countered with a heavy fist to the mush that knocked Cassandra to the floor of the unoccupied apartment that was lit only by the yellow street lights outside the building.

The apartment door closed halfway.

As she pulled her sweaty, sore face off of the thick beige carpet, Cassandra tried to remember if Stephanie had been this strong or this fast when she was a teenager.

_No._

_No, she wasn’t._

She heard those stomping boots behind her, and instinctively rolled, putting a foot out.

It was schoolyard, but it would do. Stephanie tripped, and fell on her face.

They both tried to get to their feet.

It was a tie this time.

Cassandra unleashed a side kick into Stephanie’s ribs. Stephanie grunted, and revved up her left shoulder for a punch. Cassandra saw it coming…

...only for that right steel toe boot of hers to come crashing into Cassandra’s left knee.

_There it was again!_

Between the knee to the gut in her apartment, the bite in the hallway, and now this kick to the knee, one thing was now completely evident:

Cassandra Wayne’s ability to read body language to correctly and unerringly anticipate moves in a fight was, against Stephanie Brown, completely useless.

Were body language literature, then Stephanie’s would read like Charles Manson song lyrics: Towering, window-licking insanity that submitted to the self-administration of thumbscrews for the sake of the occasional rhyme.

Stephanie had trained her body to evade Cassandra. She had, in essence, formed her own martial art to combat just one single human being on the planet.

Stephanie Brown had been theorizing about tonight for the past fourteen years.

But even in the moment, even in voluminous pain from that kick to the knee, Cassandra found this fact… kinda flattering.

And insane.

And also… yeah, still flattering.

Cassandra favored the knee, saw the kick coming, and blocked it with both hands. She drove an elbow into Stephanie’s side just above the hip, leaving her open for an uppercut that jacked her jaw.

And while Steph was looking up, Cassandra wound up a lunge kick that connected with Stephanie’s chest, sending her sailing into the abandoned kitchen, whose only ornamentation was a dust-covered toolbox that some inattentive handyman must have left there years before.

Cassandra advanced on Stephanie. Stephanie kicked her leg out, and Cassandra dropped back a pace to dodge it.

And immediately cursed herself for doing so. It was a diversion, just like a lot of Stephanie Brown’s repertoire this evening.

Because not only had Stephanie Brown found that dusty tool box, she sent it sailing for Cassandra’s head.

It was not thrown hard, and it didn’t hit flush, but the contact with Cassandra’s nose and left eye socket sent her to the floor.

Cassandra opted to turtle up, and check her nose with both hands. It wasn’t broken, but Cassandra saw blood pooling in the palm of her right.

She got to her feet, and immediately threw a spinning backfist out of both instinct and desperation. Stephanie, now also on her feet, blocked it with both hands.

Stephanie used her grip on Cassandra’s arm to spin her around. She was off balance, struggling to both breathe and see, and was unable to block Stephanie using the edges of both her hands to land simultaneous blows on either side of Cassandra’s windpipe.

Breathing air was now as hard as sucking down motor oil. Even as Stephanie landed a punch to the right side of her face and a roundhouse kick to the left, Cassandra still had enough presence of mind to realize what Stephanie’s _modus operandi _was.

She had centralized her plan of attack on Cassandra’s nose, stomach, and throat.

Stephanie was trying to make the act of breathing as difficult as humanly possible.

Cassandra Wayne had been trained from birth to fight. She was the most dangerous hand-to-hand combatant on planet Earth. She could fight blind. She could fight deaf. She could fight blind _and _deaf.

But she still needed to _breathe. _

The need for air meant all human women, even Cassandra Wayne and Stephanie Brown, were created equal.

Stephanie landed a lunge kick to Cassandra’s chest. Turnabout being fair play, Cassandra turned the door of this second apartment into a hail of splinters as she went through it.

She immediately got on her stomach, and started crawling into the hallway. Not in retreat, but in pursuit of more friendly terrain. She could do more damage in a hall than in a doorway.

Cassandra got on her back as she heard Stephanie’s bootfalls coming toward her.

She figured that the game of robbing people of their air was best played with two participants.

Stephanie raised her right foot to stomp on Cassandra’s stomach, but Cassandra had it scouted. She kicked out and found Stephanie’s left knee, which brought her to a kneeling position.

And now that she was down there. Cassandra wrapped her legs around Stephanie’s midsection, and started squeezing.

Stephanie gasped, and wriggled, but soon started turning red in the face. She landed two right hooks in the side of Cassandra’s face, but Cassandra squeezed her thighs tighter around Stephanie’s abdomen with each strike. Stephanie stopped fighting when she realized what was happening.

Cassandra saw that Stephanie’s face was now turning purple. The whites of her eyes were turning pink. A small trickle of drool was leaking from the corner of her mouth.

But she had this look in her eyes.

It seemed to say _“Alright, fine.”_

Stephanie arched her upper body forward, putting the crown of her head beneath Cassandra’s left armpit. Now that there was daylight between Cassandra’s back and the floor, Stephanie took advantage by wrapping her arms around Cassandra’s back.

With that, Stephanie began to dead lift the smaller and denser Cassandra off of the floor.

When Cassandra began to wonder how badly this could go, Stephanie, still holding her, performed about three quarters of a front flip.

This meant Stephanie landed on her ass.

This also meant that Cassandra’s head was spiked into the thinly carpeted hardwood floor.

As Cassandra ragdolled at the point of impact, the one thought that she could collect was:

_Who would even think like that?_

Who would think of the most inelegant, ungainly solution to any given problem? And who in God’s name would have the confidence that it would work?

The obvious answer to this question was, of course, Stephanie Brown. And as her thoughts seeped back in, as she heard Stephanie take ragged gasps of air, the full breadth of Stephanie’s talents became known to her.

Stephanie Brown was a _master _theoretician, and an improviser whose only peer just might have been the late, great Dick Grayson. And even then, comparing the two would have been close.

Cassandra _hated _improvisation. In crimefighting, in hand-to-hand, and on stage. _Especially _on that last one.

She had no idea what to do with her hands.

And the further this fight went into the weeds and the more opportunities for Stephanie to play to her strengths that presented themselves, the more Cassanrda saw but one outcome to this conflict.

_I am going to lose this fight…_

The two of them began the long journey to get to their feet.

This time Stephanie won.

She drove a hard elbow into the side of Cassandra’s face, dropping her back down to a knee.

But Cassandra used her position to spring up, and get behind Stephanie, whereupon she wrapped her arms around Stephanie’s lower ribcage, locking her forearms just beneath Stephanie’s two full and…

...and, uh… _ample…_

_Oh, Christ, _Cassandra thought. _ NOW I notice them…_

Cassandra paid for her momentary diversion with a backswinging forearm to the side of the face (which, we can all agree, she had coming). Now that that woke her up, Cassandra squeezed hard, locked her hips, arched her back, and swung Stephanie over her head in a German Suplex.

Stephanie bounced off the floor from her neck and the back of her head, sprung up a couple of inches from the strength of the impact, and landed on her stomach. As Cassandra got up, she could hear Stephanie groaning.

She was on Stephanie as she was getting to her feet. Cassandra sidekicked her in the stomach, sending her into the long steel handle of the metal door leading to the stairwell.

She leaned against the door, opening it, and disappeared inside.

Cassandra followed.

She opened the door and ate a lunging kick to the side of the face. Stephanie tried for a follow-up, but Cassandra caught her foot and gave a sharp tug to take a little of her balance from her.

Mission accomplished. Cassandra pressed her advantage with a palm strike to Stephanie’s forehead. Stephanie teetered…

...above the concrete steps.

Cassandra, in a sudden fear of what was going to happen, reached out and grabbed Stephanie’s shoulder to steady her.

Stephanie grabbed Cassandra’s hand, looked at her, and used all her teeth to smile at her with a near-demonic glint in her eye.

_Oh, no…_

Stephanie fell back, and took Cassandra with her.

They tumbled over each other down the short set of concrete steps, before they fell in heaps on the landing below.

For a long few seconds, neither woman moved.

Cassandra’s breathing felt like a rusty fan blade pitifully spinning inside her chest. A rib, or maybe even two, might have been cracked.

She got on all fours, only to see that Stephanie had done the same. The steps had apparently caused a cut over Stephanie’s right eyebrow. Drops of blood were collecting on the concrete landing along with the beads of sweat.

Both women, without consulting one another, moved over to sit on the bottom step of the stairwell, both silently wiping the blood off of their faces, catching their breaths, and getting their pain under control.

Cassandra looked at Stephanie. The words were on her lips that maybe, yknow, we should call a _truce?_

When, without even looking at her, Stephanie punched Cassandra in the face.

She went for a sitting kick, Cassandra caught it, and returned the favor with a right elbow.

The force of the blow, as well as the trajectory, sent both Cassandra and Stephanie to the floor again, each landing on their fronts.

Slowly but surely, the two of them got to their knees.

And there they were, across from one another. Kneeling and sweating and bleeding and staring through each other.

The two of them gasped for breath, preparing themselves for what was coming.

Stephanie used a healthy portion of her strength to raise her right hand and rain a blow on Cassandra’s face.

**WHAM!**

Her ears started to ring. She took a second to inhale, raised her own right, and…

**WHAM!**

...sent it to the left side of Stephanie’s face. The force sent a rain of sweat and blood from that cut above her eye onto the brick wall. Stephanie breathed in a snortful of air and…

**WHAM!**

...another right. The pain screamed in the side of Cassandra’s face. She let a fleck of spittle fly as she exhaled and…

**WHAM!**

...another right cross.

Thus were both women near-totally sapped of their energy. They both fell forward into each others’ shoulders, forming a human teepee.

They both exhaled stale breath, seeped sweat, poured blood into the left shoulders of each others’ shirts.

Cassandra felt pressure building into her shoulder from Stephanie’s head, and decided to apply some of her own.

Both women used their heads as leverage on the others’ bodies to bring themselves to their feet.

Then they pushed off, each taking a wobbly stance. Both of their shirts were soaked in sweat, both of their faces were dabbed in blood, and both looked at each other through half-closed eyes.

Cassandra seemed to come to an understanding. And she could see that same understanding in Stephanie’s eyes.

They each had one more move left in them.

But when it came to sheer strength and speed… Cassandra Wayne would win every time.

Cassandra broke into a sprint with her forearm up before Stephanie could even lift her hands. They collided, and Cassandra slammed Stephanie into the brick wall behind her.

She pinned Stephanie against the wall, and Stephanie clawed at the forearm at her collar bone.

“Stephanie,” Cassandra said. “It’s over.”

Stephanie put her foot against the wall for leverage. She groaned as she tried to push off, but Cassandra shoved her back.

“Enough!” she said.

Stephanie turned red, and started screaming as she tried to push herself against Cassandra’s forearm, but Cassandra shoved her against the wall yet again, silencing her.

It seemed that there was simply no defeating Stephanie Brown. At least not all the way. Cassandra could break all four of her limbs, and Stephanie would use her chin to crawl toward her and escalate things.

There were people who would destroy themselves for no greater reason than simply to prove a point. Stephanie Brown was one of those people. And Cassandra Wayne was not.

So, after a brief consultation between herself and the congressional leaders and Joint Chiefs of Staff in her mind, Cassandra opted to drop an atomic bomb.

She leaned in next to the ear of the struggling Stephanie, and in as even and level a voice as she could manage, said:

“Steph… We both know that you’re fighting me now because you couldn’t fuck me when you were eighteen.”

It was a low blow, to be sure. And unlike Stephanie’s accusation in the apartment above about how the world would have been a better place if Cassandra had just dropped her father when she was nine… this was the God’s honest truth. Or at least the truth as far as Cassandra saw it.

But it ended the fight. 

Stephanie’s hands dropped from Cassandra’s forearm. And as soon as Cassandra was satisfied that there was going to be no more further violence, she stepped away.

They took this opportunity to use the sleeves of their shirts to mop up the blood and sweat on their faces… and pointedly not look at each other.

The screaming match stage had ended. Now, too, did the fist fight stage. Which meant that both Cassandra Wayne and Stephanie Brown were firmly in the clutches of the mortifying embarrassment stage.

Cassandra felt every last bit the cad. The heel. The moustache-twirling villain who tied chicks to railroad tracks and popped childrens’ balloons with lit cigars. She had just wadded up fourteen years of Stephanie’s frustration and regret, and threw it back at her in the form of a ninety-mile-an-hour slider.

But it needed to be done.

And now that it was out in the open air, hopefully… _hopefully… _Stephanie would be able to see that.

They were both silent for a long time. But it was Cassandra who chanced the initial glance, and spoke first.

“Steph?”

Stephanie neither looked at her, nor said anything.

“Steph,” Cassandra said again.

Stephanie chanced a glance out of the corner of the eye that had a fresh bead of blood coming from the eyebrow above.

Cassandra closed her eyes, sighed, and collected her thoughts.

“I didn’t know I had it in me to be interested in another person,” Cassandra said, “until I was seventeen years old, and I had a sex dream about Dick Grayson. I asked myself some questions, and I got myself some answers.”

Stephanie gave a small, near-imperceptible nod.

“And I didn’t know I could be girlfriend material,” Cassandra said, “until I was eighteen, and Conner Kent sat on the couch in the top floor of the Clock Tower and told me I had a nice ass.”

Stephanie let off a grunt of laughter.

“I asked myself some _more _questions,” Cassandra said, trying not to smile at the memory. “And I got myself some _more _answers.”

More silence from the both of them as Cassandra wound herself up.

“Then I turned nineteen,” Cassandra said. “And Selina tells me that that the best friend I ever had, then or now, that _Stephanie Brown _was in love with me.”

Stephanie took that as her cue to look at the floor again. Cassandra took a step toward her.

“Steph… What questions do you think I asked myself? What… what _answers _do you think I got?”

Stephanie took a deep breath, and chanced another look at Cassandra.

“I met your ex-girlfriend,” Stephanie said. “At the wake. Violet Paige.”

Cassandra instinctively said what she always did once she heard that _anyone _had met Violet. 

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that.”

Both women let out lame gusts of laughter before they found the floor the most interesting thing in the world, they both kept staring at it so much.

But Cassandra chanced the glance again, and took a step forward.

“If anyone were to ask me,” Cassandra said, “what the most pivotal point in my life was, it wasn’t killing that man in Macau. It wasn’t becoming a superhero. Christ, it wasn’t even being given The Bat.”

Stephanie made tentative eye contact.

“It was the first time Babs took me down to the Batcave,” Cassandra said. “I was small, I was malnourished, and my arm was in a cast from punching some dude too hard.”

Progress was being made. Stephanie actually smiled. Cassandra took another step forward.

“I walk in with Babs,” Cassandra said, “and there was the present and the future of the people who protect and defend this city. They all knew me just as _‘Orphan.’ _ They were all scared of me. They all pitied me… Except one.”

Stephanie made full eye contact now. She stood up straight as Cassandra took another step.

“The most… _signature _moment of my life,” Cassandra said, “was when Spoiler, when _Stephanie Brown _stepped out of that crowd… with a smile on her face, without a care in the world… and signed my cast.”

Now it was Cassandra’s turn to avert her gaze. She’d given away too much.

“You, uh… You made an impression… A big one… Is what I’m saying.”

Cassandra felt fingers softly touch the side of her face. Stephanie had closed the gap between them without Cassandra even hearing or sensing it. As Cassandra turned her head to look Stephanie in the eye, Stephanie’s other hand gently touched the other side of Cassandra’s face.

Stephanie leaned in with her eyes closed.

Cassandra had no game plan.

And their lips met.

Any token bit of protest on Cassandra’s part vanished in an instant, if it had even been there at all. Every molecule of Cassandra Wayne’s conscious being dashed itself into non-existence against the fullness and warmth of Stephanie Brown’s lips.

The kiss broke, and the two of them rested their foreheads against one another, breathing into one another’s mouths.

And that’s when Stephanie went in for seconds.

This second kiss was harder than the first. Stephanie’s tongue broke into Cassandra’s mouth and conducted a full inspection. Cassandra’s tongue aggressively followed it around, asking for the search warrant.

The hands that had been gently grasping the sides of Cassandra’s face turned rigid. They trailed down her cheeks, down her neck, down to the collar of her shirt. With a sharp tug, Stephanie ripped open Cassandra’s button-up flannel.

Buttons flew everywhere. One of them hit the metal railing of the stairwell with a _PINNNNNNGGGGG! _that echoed off the brick walls.

Cassandra took a moment to reflect that she really _liked _that shirt, before she figured out that it was soaked in blood and sweat, and probably ruined anyway.

Stephanie looked down at Cassandra’s chest, and Cassandra’s eyes eventually followed.

What was there was a taut grid of abdominal muscles glazed with a near-mirror shine of sweat, dotted here and there with a larger pearl of perspiration. Angry red welts that would be turning purple soon enough… and two small breasts whose modesty was protected by a forest green bra.

That neither the Good Lord Jesus nor the Great Old One Cthulhu had seen fit to stock her top shelf all the way was the only source of Cassandra Wayne’s physical insecurity. So the fact that Stephanie was just staring at her tits… and not _saying _anything… did not do wonders for her self-esteem.

_Maybe… Maybe if I stand up straight and take deep breaths, they’ll just _look _bigger?_

Finally, Stephanie said something.

“Where’d all the scars go?”

Cassandra sighed with relief. “I got them removed.”

“You did?”

“Yeah… I mean, my _dad _gave them to me and they just weren’t me anymore, y’know?”

“Chicks dig scars, though.”

Cassandra blinked at her uncomprehendingly. “Wow. If only there were a lesbian handy in the last fourteen years who COULD HAVE FUCKING TOLD ME THAT!”

Stephanie shrugged. “Eh, to Hell with it.”

She bent her head down, and started licking the sweat off of the meager plushness of Cassandra’s right breast mere centimeters above the bra line.

It was at this point that it occurred to Cassandra that normal people did not act this way, and that maybe the two of them would be better served to discuss their unanswered questions and pent-up passions that spanned a decade-and-a-half over a simple conversation.

But they weren’t normal people, and all that came out of Cassandra’s mouth was a low, husky _“Huhhhhhhhhhhhh.”_

Stephanie drew both the shirt and the bra strap down around Cassandra’s right shoulder, and started dragging her teeth along the now fully exposed collar bone toward the throat. Cassandra reached out for Stephanie’s belt buckle, and tried to gain entry into Fort Knox.

But her fingers were being COMPLETE FUCKING IDIOTS RIGHT NOW! The index finger of her right hand tried to dig in between the steel buckle and the leather strap, and it just… wasn’t… _working!_

Cassandra cursed her unlearned and ignorant digits. She _needed_ to get into Stephanie Brown’s pants! She was on official Gotham City crimefighting business! The antidote was in there! _The launch codes!_ ** A LONG LOST SILVER NITRATE PRINT OF LON CHANEY’S SILENT MASTERPIECE ****_LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT!_**

She gave up. She let out a frustrated grunt that was _not at all cavemanly, thank you very much, _before stooping down. She wrapped her right arm around Stephanie’s firm, muscular thighs and hoisted her up over her shoulder.

Stephanie let out a pathetic groan. _“Uuuuuuagggghhhhhh.”_

It occurred to Cassandra far too late that the two of them had spent an ungodly amount of time using each others’ stomachs as punching bags and soccer balls, so resting Stephanie’s gut over Cassandra’s lean, muscular shoulder just might have been a bit on the painful side.

“You okay back there?” Cassandra asked.

“No,” Stephanie said weakly.

Whereupon Cassandra felt ten fingers snake their way beneath the waistbands of both her dirty gray sweatpants and her sweat-sogged white underwear, followed by two palms resting on both sides of her rear end.

“I’m better now though,” Stephanie said. “Just in case you were curious.”

Cassandra nodded in satisfaction. She began her march up the hard concrete steps that the two of them had tumbled painfully down just minutes before.

She stopped halfway.

“Why’d you stop?” Stephanie asked.

Cassandra was so… _everything _… that she was literally panting. She had no faculty at present to lie, or to make herself appear any less the dumbass than she felt.

“I… I, uh… I forgot where my apartment is.”

Don’t worry.

They made it to Cassandra’s apartment.

Eventually.


	19. The Cure for the Common Motherfucker

**Chapter 19: The Cure for the Common Motherfucker**

“I’m sore,” Cassandra said.

“From what?” asked Stephanie.

“Pick … literally anything that’s happened over the last two hours, and you’ll have your answer.”

After Cassandra Wayne and Stephanie Brown had their anxious, sweaty, marginally painful, neurotic, long-in-the-offing ways with each other on the hallway floor...and again on Cassandra’s living room floor… and yet a third time on Cassandra’s bed just to lend the proceedings an air of authenticity, they both decided that a bath was in order. After the mutual applications of both Neosporin and Band-Aids, Cassandra filled the tub, and in they went.

It would be the second time Cassandra bathed that evening.

Cassandra had had Kate’s old tub moved out, and a five thousand dollar black freestanding tub moved in. It had been advertised _“for the larger bather,” _but Cassandra just wanted the extra room. Both for her own comfort and, well, for nights like these, should they happen.

The water was just this side of too hot for both of them. The window behind the tub as well as the bathroom mirror had fogged. The perfunctory reciprocal scrubbing and cleansing over with, the two of them just sat and soaked. Cassandra was the little spoon in this equation, sitting in front of Stephanie in water that came halfway up her sternum. She luxuriated in feeling the slick warmth of Stephanie’s chest against her back, and successfully fought off the temptation to just fall asleep.

“Even if I didn’t know you had an ex-girlfriend,” Stephanie said, “I’d be correct in assuming I wouldn’t be the first woman you slept with, wouldn’t I?”

“Indeed you would.”

“So… How deep in the batting order am I, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Cassandra sighed, and said “Fourth.”

“Not entirely unimpressive.”

“I’d like to think so.”

“You mind on spilling on one-through-three?”

“As long as it doesn’t leave this tub.”

“Like I’m gonna tell on the only person who’s beat me in a fight in fourteen years.”

Cassandra stretched her back against Stephanie’s chest, heard her spine pop, and then resettled.

“One-through-three,” Cassandra said. “Bear in mind this is not in chronological order.”

“What order is it in?”

“Ascending quality.”

“I can dig it.”

Cassandra rubbed the side of her sore nose before she began.

“Coming in dead last,” she said, “was the first girl I ever slept with. I’d been broken up with Conner for a few months, and I was in LA on Justice League business, scouting out some shady Cadmus activity. The order came down that I be partnered up for the night, which meant I had to share a hotel room… with Crush.”

Stephanie gasped. _“Nice. _ She was fine back in the day. I saw her at the wake today, and by God she’s fine _now, _too.”

Cassandra shrugged.

“What puts her dead last, though?”

“Crush,” Cassandra said, “is _gentle.”_

“Hmm,” said Stephanie in reply. “Are… are we thinking about the same Crush?”

“There’s only one.”

“Half-Czarnian? Daughter of Lobo? White skin? Red eyes? Black undercut? So burly and butch that… that…”

“That every time she cracks her knuckles, a U-Haul repairs itself?”

“Exactly,” Stephanie said. “Gentle? _Her?”_

“Dare I say a cuddler.”

“That is… that is actually distressing. This place have a fainting couch? A fan? Some pearls to clutch?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Cassandra said. “She wasn’t _bad. _ She does gentle rather well and the _scenery _was incredible, but… You know that old saying? _ ‘I ordered filet mignon, and got a burger instead?’ _ Well, with Crush, it was the opposite. I got filet mignon. Filet mignon’s great. But there are days when you just need that burger.”

“I have a couple of hours experience that tells me Cassandra Wayne does not do gentle.” 

“Oh, Cassandra Wayne does gentle,” she said. “I just need to be in the _mood _for gentle. But when you buy a ticket for a Quentin Tarantino movie, a G rating is gonna put you off.”

“Fair,” Stephanie said. “How long did the Crush experiment last?”

“Just the one night.”

Cassandra could feel Stephanie nodding behind her.

“Okay,” Stephanie asked. “Who’s next?”

“Violet’s next.”

“Burly pale brunette with black undercut part two.”

“I don’t have a type, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“How did that whole thing get started?”

“She fought crime in my city,” Cassandra said. “But she didn’t like the support system that was in place. Didn’t like what me and The Signal were trying to build. She tried to start shit, I kicked her ass, and then she just started… following me around.”

“Don’t make me identify with Violet Paige.”

“I dated her for eight months,” Cassandra said. “The longest relationship I have ever had with another human being that isn’t named Conner Kent.”

“And what puts her on this spot on the list?”

“Violet is a badass,” Cassandra said. “And one hell of a Cape. But she was born rich, and it shows.”

“How does it show?”

“It showed,” Cassandra said, “when she just kept lying back and expecting me to do all the work.”

“Oof.”

“When she was motivated, she could be inspired, but when she wasn’t she wasn’t, she was the next best thing to a mannequin. Again, beautiful girl, tall, fun to play with, but it would have helped if she decided to play with me _back. _ Y’know, you’d think a six-foot-tall Goth chick with super strength and a chip on her shoulder would have a power game, but it just shows to go you.”

“How did the relationship with her start?” Stephanie asked.

“She followed me around,” Cassandra said. “Like a puppy. Kinda hard to resist.”

“And what ended it?”

“Also like a puppy, she kept shitting in my shoes. Not literally, but… it was like she was trying to upset me. Just so I’d go away, and then she’d make a big deal of how she was martyring herself to get me to come back. I just had enough of it after eight months. I swear, she’s gonna find herself up against someone who’s hard to piss off, and she’s not gonna know what to do with herself.”

“And we’re down to contestant number three,” Stephanie said.

Cassandra leaned forward a little bit to look back at Stephanie, before leaning back again.

“Wow,” Stephanie said. “This oughta be good.”

Cassandra took a deep breath… then another… before she said:

“Harper.”

She felt Stephanie go rigid behind her. Cassandra leaned forward again, craning her neck to get another look.

Stephanie’s face was a mask of pure shock.

“No… fucking… way,” she said.

Cassandra leaned back again, and pinched the bridge of her nose… but her nose was still sore from the toolbox, and she stopped.

_“Please _tell me it wasn’t while she was married to Tim.”

“Two days after the divorce was finalized,” Cassandra said. “She came over because we hadn’t hung out in a while. We sat, we drank, we watched TV. And I noticed that she kept getting closer and closer on the couch, and…”

“And?”

“And… I didn’t want to be rude.”

Stephanie giggled. Some silence before she asked:

“Was she any good?”

“Oh, _hell _yes.”

Stephanie broke into full-throated laughter.

“Now _Harper,” _Cassandra said as she fought the smile on her own face, _“Harper _has a power game.”

“So… So that only lasted one night?”

“Yeah,” Cassandra said. “I think she wanted to get back to being single as soon as possible, and I was the nearest warm body that she trusted.”

“So things weren’t weird for the two of you after that?”

“It was only weird,” Cassandra said, “in that it _wasn’t _weird.”

“What does that mean?” Stephanie asked.

“She never mentioned it. Not once. Everything went back to normal the next time I saw her. If the nail marks on my back didn’t take three weeks to heal, I would have sworn I dreamed it.”

Silence followed, though not an awkward one. Stephanie took this pause to run her fingers through Cassandra’s short wet hair. Were Cassandra a cat, she’d have purred, but she was human, so it was a near-run thing.

“So I take it Conner was your first time?” Stephanie asked.

“Yeah.”

“What was it like?”

“Mind if I ask why you’re curious about any human being losing their virginity to a dude?”

“When it’s _you,” _Stephanie said.

Cassandra thought that was fair enough.

“It, uh… It happened a couple of months after you left,” Cassandra said. “He was… the best boyfriend. He gave me all the time I needed. He took me to a Smallville Crows football game to take my mind off of it. Then we went driving in his pick-up to take my mind off of it. We parked on top of this hill and looked at the stars in the flatbed.”

“And then he… did _that _to take your mind off of me?”

“No,” Cassandra said. “I made the first move.”

_“Really?”_

Cassandra nodded.

“Why?” Stephanie asked.

“Because I wanted him, I knew he wanted me, and I saw no reason to put it off any longer. I got some protection from Harper beforehand just in case. Just in case happened.”

“How does sex with a half-Kryptonian clone even work?”

“Same way it does with a human,” Cassandra said. “We used two of the three condoms.”

“I can tell you’re more into marathons than sprints.”

“It was more of a _tactile _thing, y’know? Just… initially feeling each other out. We got better the more we asked what the other wanted. Anyway, I got no complaints from him,” Cassandra said. “Or _you.”_

Stephanie leaned forward a bit, and lightly kissed the back of Cassandra’s slick right ear.

“We were beneath blankets in the flatbed of the truck,” Cassandra said. “We spent all night under the stars. I woke up with the sunrise, and saw that the truck overlooked this massive field of tall, yellow, dying grass that came up to my shoulder. It was warm in Kansas that December, so I get out from under the blankets and walk into the grass. Not a stitch on me. Because I didn’t want anything getting between me and that… that flat expanse of _infinite golden nothing.”_

Cassandra closed her eyes, chased the memory, and sighed when it got away.

“When I get too old or too broken down to put a cape on,” Cassandra said, “I’m retiring in Kansas. It’s the most beautiful place on Earth.”

Stephanie flicked her index finger up and down in the water next to Cassandra’s elbow. “So… Do you still love Conner?”

“Yes.”

“Okay… Are you still…”

_“In _love with Conner?” Cassandra asked. “We needed each other to become who we needed to become. Then we became who we needed to become, and we didn’t need each other anymore. No, I am not in love with Conner Kent.”

Stephanie was quiet for a bit. Cassandra wanted to turn around and see the look on her face, but even practically sitting in her naked lap in a bathtub, it seemed like an invasion of privacy.

“So you got one of those magical first times I hear so much about,” Stephanie finally said.

“I know how lucky I am,” Cassandra said. “How about you?”

“My first time?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not much.”

“Don’t care.”

“Okay,” Stephanie said. “It was about… month four in England. I was nineteen, but all my Natalie Venora paperwork said I was twenty-one. I go to this punk show in Sheffield…”

“You like punk?”

“Not really. But it was something to do. I go inside and see this bored-looking chick about my age wearing these plaid pants with straps on them, ass-kicking boots. Nothing on upstairs except a cheap black bra, and she had a green mohawk. She’s standing at the edge of the mosh pit looking bored, and… and her version of pretty. I walk up to her, she takes my hand, and she leads me to the foulest-smelling ladies room I’ve ever been into. She locks the stall behind us, and we each do a line of coke off the lid of the toilet tank. And while I’m still reeling from my first-ever experience with hard drugs, she unbuckles my jeans, pulls down my panties, and makes me see stars.”

“What was her name?”

“Didn’t catch it,” Stephanie said.

“Oh.”

“Don’t get mopey,” Stephanie said. “It may not have been magical Kansas fields, but at least it was _fun. _ And it was a learning experience.”

“What did you learn?”

“I learned,” Stephanie said, “to be picky.”

And the hand that had been scratching Cassandra’s head left her scalp. It reappeared before Cassandra, the index finger coming down on her forehead where her hairline began.

Down it came, tracing a path down her moist forehead, down to the tip of her tiny nose, down to her lips, and Cassandra reflexively kissed it. Further down now. Down the throat. Down to that little hollow where the left and right sides of her collar bone met.

_She’s… She’s not going for Round Four, is she?_

The journey of Stephanie’s finger continued south. Beneath the hot soapy water and between Cassandra’s breasts. Down the latticework of abs.

_Well, if there’s gonna be a Round Four, there’s gonna be a Round Four. I didn’t let her beat me in a fight, and she’s not beating me here, either._

The finger circled the navel before it decided to descend. Cassandra’s body loosened. Her eyes rolled back in her head.

_Please let there be a Round Four._

Down that short and smooth patch of skin beneath the belly button that _leeeeed toooooo theeeee…_

“I’m hungry,” Stephanie said.

Then she got out of the bathtub.

Cassandra instantly went rigid in the water. A war crime had just been committed. And should The Hague find Stephanie Brown guilty of the atrocity in which she had just engaged, then Cassandra Wayne was bound by honor to be the one who pulled the lever on the guillotine.

She jerked her head to the right, and saw that Stephanie had already left the bathroom. Cassandra had been robbed of seeing her toned, wet, naked body leaving through the door. It was something that Cassandra would have considered a consolation prize.

Stephanie came back in with a burgundy towel wrapped over her chest, and working yet another burgundy towel through her hair to dry it out. That second towel must have concealed Stephanie’s vision, because she started asking questions like nothing was wrong.

“Is Tammy’s Diner still open?” Stephanie asked as she dried her hair. “You know, that place on…”

The towel parted, and Stephanie saw her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Cassandra’s face just… _felt _like it bore a pathetic expression. Her mouth kept opening and closing as her brain tried to settle on something to say, be it _“Dude!” _or _“Bitch?” _or _“ROUND FOUR!”_

But nothing came out.

At which point Stephanie smiled, and knelt down by the rim of the tub, grunting in soreness as she did so. 

Cassandra noticed the smile on Stephanie’s face. It… did not bode well for her.

“Aww,” Stephanie said, “it breaks the heart seeing a girl dying of thirst like that.”

Stephanie reached out and turned on the water.

The _cold _water.

_“GYAAAAAAAAAAH!”_

Cassandra scrambled out of the tub, her naked, pruny, bruised, drenched body hitting the tile floor with a Looney Tunes **SPLAT!**

She groaned.

And Stephanie laughed.

* * *

**TAMMY’S DINER**

Stephanie’s clothes being in the state they were, coated in blood, sweat, and splinters, she had to make do with what Cassandra had around the apartment. Or at least what she had around the apartment that fit her.

She did not mind wearing a pair of Conner’s old jeans. She did, however, mind wearing a pair of Conner’s old boxers, facilitating her decision to grab a pair of Cassandra’s gray gym shorts as a substitute. Up top she wore a baggy yellow and white hockey jersey that Cassandra had in her bedroom closet, bearing the logo of the Letterkenny Shamrockettes.

Completing the ensemble, she wore Cassandra’s Pittsburgh Pirates baseball cap.

Cassandra herself in a pair of black slacks and a loose yellow sweater beneath her black leather jacket, they both left the RH Kane Building and marched the two blocks down Founders Island’s foggy streets to Tammy’s Diner.

Tammy’s Diner was a diner that knew it was a diner. It had found that difficult middle-ground by looking like it was trying to hard to be 50s retro, while the light air of genuine shabbiness lent it some semblance of authenticity. Tammy’s Diner had the ambiance of an abandoned theme park ride that had never seen a paying customer. Thus, anyone with taste found it interesting.

Over in the far booth at the front of the diner, next to the window, Cassandra and Stephanie sat. And Cassandra was tuning up a small black gizmo no smaller or less sleek than a Zippo lighter.

“What’s that?” Stephanie asked.

“This,” Cassandra said, “is the Cone of Silence.”

_“‘The Cone of Silence?’”_

Cassandra nodded. “It dampens sound three feet outside its radius. You and I can hear each other, the waitress can hear us when she takes our order, but no one outside of three feet can hear whatever we talk about.”

“Nifty,” Stephanie said.

They both retrieved menus from the little nook at their table next to the napkins. Cassandra got her Reading Glasses out of her leather jacket, put them on, and weighed her dinner options.

“That’s nice to see,” Stephanie said.

Cassandra looked up at her.

“You,” Stephanie said. “Reading.”

Cassandra smiled, took off her glasses, and handed them to Stephanie across the table.

“Try them on,” she said.

Stephanie took the Reading Glasses and put them on. At first Stephanie’s eyes went wide, then they closed in pain.

_“Ow,” _Stephanie said, handing the glasses back. “What the _fuck?”_

“I have dyslexia,” Cassandra said, taking the glasses from Stephanie’s returning hand. “WayneTech mapped the speech center of my brain, and those glasses unscramble all the words I have a hard time reading. The lenses in my Black Bat mask have the same software. No more letters moving around, no more reading the same line of text over and over. But it looks like ass to anyone who isn't me.”

Stephanie, rubbing her eyes, said “Sweetness.”

“This tech is gonna help kids with their disabilities the same way it helped me with mine,” Cassandra said as she put them back on. “Being patient zero for this really is one of the highlights of my life.”

“And to think, I learned the other four languages the old fashioned way."

“You speak five languages?”

Stephanie nodded. “English, Russian, Mandarin, Arabic, and French. A couple of those were a pain in the ass. How ‘bout you? You still speaking the one?”

“Oh, I’m bilingual.”

“English and…”

“ASL.”

Stephanie blinked at her.

Cassandra put the menu down on the table, freed up her fingers, and signed:

_“Fuck you, it counts.”_

Just then, the waitress appeared at the table. Cassandra looked at her, and she looked back.

The waitress (whose teal uniform bore no nametag) put her pad and her pen in the side pockets of her white apron, and she signed the words:

_“You have a dirty mouth.”_

“I can’t dispute that,” Cassandra said aloud.

The waitress got her pen and pad back out, and blew a lock of mousy brown hair out of one hazel eye. “Do the two of you mind if I asked what happened to you before I take your order?”

Cassandra and Stephanie looked at each other’s lumpy, bruised faces.

Stephanie, looking down at her menu, said “We got mugged.”

“Don’t worry,” Cassandra said. “We mugged them right the hell back.”

The waitress didn’t say anything, other than “What can I getcha?”

“I would like,” Cassandra said, “the double decker cheeseburger with fries, and… a chocolate milkshake, please.”

“And for you?” the waitress asked Stephanie.

Still with her head down, Stephanie said “Waffles with a side of bacon and an iced tea, if you’d be so kind.”

Cassandra and Stephanie said their thank-yous, and off the waitress walked across the black and white tiled floor. Cassandra noticed that Stephanie still kept her head down, looking at the table.

Then Stephanie collapsed into a giggle-fit.

“What?” Cassandra asked as she took off her Reading Glasses and put them back in her jacket.

“I…” Stephanie began, trying to get a handle on herself. “I didn’t brush my teeth before we came here…. I had to fight off the urge to get in that waitress’ face and be all _‘Hhhhiiiiiiiii.’”_

More giggles. Cassandra, however, was confused.

“You didn’t brush your teeth?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Because you only have the one toothbrush in your apartment.”

“And?”

“And you know where my mouth has been.”

“Objection withdrawn.”

More giggles from Stephanie. Even Cassandra had to smile.

Once she got herself under control, Stephanie asked “So what other WayneTech toys is the Black Bat of Gotham playing with these days?”

“Well,” Cassandra said, “Luke Fox is trying to sell me on using a nanite slime.”

“A what?”

“It starts in the form of this cylinder,” Cassandra said, “about the size of a tube of tennis balls. Once activated by fingerprints and a verbal command, it collapses into a thick liquid state and bonds with the wearer, spreading all over them, becoming a skin-tight suit of armor with radio capability. Waterproof, bulletproof, radiation-proof. Electricity’s a little iffy, though.”

“Sounds cool,” Stephanie said. “But… do you have to be naked to use it? If you put this nanite slime on, what happens to your clothes?”

“Actually,” Cassandra said, “It… um…”

The waitress came by with Cassandra’s shake and Stephanie’s iced tea. They said their thank yous, and the waitress departed.

Cassandra took the wrapper off her straw. “The slime compresses clothes down to the molecular level, maps them, and then decompresses them once you give the command to remove the slime. No, you don’t have to be naked.”

“Tight.”

“I don’t want to use it, though.”

“Why not?”

Cassandra swallowed some thick, chocolatey goodness. “There’s this saying Bruce has. _ ‘It’s justice. There is no cheating.’ _ But that slime pushes it. It makes you stronger and faster. But the body I have, I worked hard on.”

Stephanie fingered the Band-Aid over her eyebrow and said “I have noticed so many ways that that’s true.”

And Cassandra didn’t know whether or not to be embarrassed. Or by what.

“If I had something like that,” Stephanie said, “I’d use it in a heartbeat. It’s like… It’s like a Venom Symbiote.”

“Don’t call it that.”

“But it _is, _though.”

“I _know, _but don’t _call _it that.”

Stephanie smiled. She gripped the straw of her drink between her index and middle fingers, as though it were a cigarette, and drank some tea.

“You said working on those glasses was a highlight of your life,” Stephanie said. “Care to name any others?”

“How about you?”

“Fourteen years of hotel rooms and bodyguard duty… There. All done.”

Cassandra smiled.

“Okay,” she said. “Ummm… I made it to outer space.”

“So did I,” Stephanie said. “Aquaman’s wake on the Watchtower, remember?”

“Yeah, but not to another planet though.”

“Which one?”

“Rann. Power Girl and I tracked down Rogol Zaar. She beat the shit out of him. I watched. It’s pretty. The planet, not Power Girl. _ Although...”_

“Anything else?”

“Became an actor.”

“That you’re going to have to explain to me.”

“You have a theory?”

“I theorize,” Stephanie said, “that you spend so much time skulking in the shadows that you want a safe way to be the center of attention.”

“Nope.”

“Then by all means elaborate.”

Cassandra shrugged. “Acting,” she said, “is an act of forced understanding.”

Stephanie furrowed her brow. “Hmmm.”

“A couple of years back,” Cassandra said, “I played Harley Quinn in a show we did over at the Beacon. Now I don’t know if it’s occurred to you, but I am nothing like Harley Quinn. So I have to do guesswork. I have to do research. I have to be creative. I have to have empathy. I have to _understand. _ Because if I can understand someone like Harley Quinn…”

She pointed out the window to the foggy bit of street outside.

“...then I can understand any one of _them.”_

Stephanie had a ponderous, serious look on her face as she said “I’m sorry, I’m still stuck on you playing Harley Quinn.”

Cassandra wadded up her straw wrapper and threw it at Stephanie. 

“Yeah,” a smiling Cassandra said. “I got nominated for an award for it, and…”

“So when you played her,” Stephanie said, “did you…”

“Have to wear hot pants, platform boots, and a halter top? Slather my face in clown makeup? Yes I did.”

“I see,” Stephanie said. “And are there _pictures _of this?”

Cassandra made like she was going to throw her shake-slathered straw at her. Stephanie held her at bay with her two index fingers pressed against each other in the form of a crucifix.

“Okay,” Stephanie said. “Pie-in-the-sky pick for character you’ve always wanted to play. Go.”

“That’s easy,” said Cassandra. “I have two.”

“Lay ‘em out.”

“The first is Richard III.”

“I saw the Ian McKellen movie in history class one time.”

“Did you like it?”

“Couldn’t understand a word.”

“And the second one,” Cassandra said, “is The Fool.”

“The Fool?”

“From _King Lear.”_

“Didn’t I see a _King Lear _poster on your living room wall?” Stephanie asked.

Cassandra swallowed some shake. “You did. I played Goneril.”

“I hear there’s medication for that.”

“Yeah, I made that joke too.”

“So what makes The Fool so appealing?”

“Because he’s the smart one,” Cassandra said. “He walks around, telling Lear how bad he’s fucking up to his face, and they keep him around because he’s just The Fool. There in his funny shoes and his motley. They just think he’s funny, when what he’s really doing is telling the truth.”

Stephanie stared at her with a concerned look on her face.

“It’s a jester’s hat,” Cassandra said. “With the little bells.”

“Yeah,” Stephanie said. “I know what a motley is. It’s just…”

“What?”

Steph, still with that concerned look on her face, said “I’m not Harley Quinn.”

“Dear God, I hope not.”

“But I’m gonna attempt some psychoanalysis anyway.”

Cassandra succumbed to the strong suspicion that Stephanie had something interesting to say. “Okay. Shoot.”

Stephanie opened her mouth, then closed it. She repeated the act twice more as she fished for something to say.

“I’ve been away for fourteen years,” Stephanie said at last. “I leave when you’re one way, and I come back when you’re another. I missed the subtle gradients of change, the gradual, um… _whatever, _right?”

“I’m with you so far.”

“That means,” Stephanie said, “I see things about you that others might have missed. Because you changed so gradually over the years that they just didn’t notice.”

“What, um… What do you see?”

“Well,” Stephanie said, “I saw your GED on the wall in your living room. You got that when you were twenty-nine.”

Cassandra shifted uncomfortably in her seat. This could go somewhere she didn’t like. “Yeah?”

“But when I met you,” Stephanie said, “you couldn’t read, speak, or talk. And you were seventeen.”

“Okay.”

“Which means… technically… that you got your GED when you were _twelve.”_

Cassandra blinked.

“This also means,” Stephanie said, “again technically… that you’re a fucking _genius.”_

Now it was Cassandra’s turn to gulp like a fish. She had no idea what to say.

“But when Bruce, Selina, Tim, everyone else looks at you, they don’t see that, do they? They see Little Miss Badass who can’t read or write or talk, no matter how much you improve. Think you might be drawn to The Fool in _King Lear… _because you _are _The Fool in _King Lear?”_

Cassandra tried to filter her thoughts, but nothing particularly enlightening or even legible came to the surface.

“If I say yes,” Cassandra said, “that’s gonna sound fucked up in ways I can’t even comprehend.”

“Okay,” Stephanie said, before taking a draw off her tea. “Tell me something else that happened to you.”

“Alright,” Cassandra said. “Umm… Tim and I found the bunker I was born in. The place David Cain… _trained _me.”

“You mean _‘tortured and abused,’ _right?”

“I do,” Cassandra said. “There were some rudimentary files in there. I found out my actual birthday, which is January twenty-sixth.”

“Happy shitload of birthdays.”

“And it’s just nice to know the actual place I was born.”

“Which is?”

Cassandra knew she’d have to get here eventually, but it made the disclosure nonetheless embarrassing. She felt the heat rush to her cheeks.

“What?” asked Stephanie. “What’s wrong with where you were born?”

“I was born,” Cassandra said, “in Moscow.”

Stephanie scrunched up her face in confusion. “You’re Russian?”

“No,” Cassandra said. “I was born in an underground bunker fifteen miles outside of Moscow… Arkansas.”

Stephanie just stared at Cassandra.

And that’s when the laughter started.

Huge peals of near-deafening laughter that caused Stephanie Brown to turn red instantly. She put her head down on the table and started banging on it with her fist so hard that little drops of iced tea spilled from her glass.

“Stephanie…”

More laughter.

“Stephanie, it’s gonna be weird for our waitress if she looks over here and can’t hear you acting a damn fool because of the Cone of Silence.”

Agonizing seconds later, Stephanie had calmed herself enough for some simulacrum of conventional speech.

“Oh… Ohhhhhh my _Gooooooooood, _you’re a _hillbilly!”_

“I am not,” Cassandra said. “I’m a classically trained Shakespearian actor who’s the adopted daughter of Bruce Wayne.”

“You’re right,” Stephanie said. “I’m sorry… _You’re a hillwilliam!”_

Yet again, more laughter.

Cassandra rolled her eyes, and tried to wait her out.

But dear _God, _it went on a long time.

“Stephanie,” Cassandra said. “If you don’t stop laughing, I won’t tell you about how I met my birth mother.”

Stephanie stopped laughing. Her eyes went wide, and her mouth went into a perfect O shape.

She put her forearms on the table. “Details,” Stephanie said. “I demand details. How did you find her?”

“I didn’t,” Cassandra said. “She found me.”

Stephanie narrowed her eyes in apparent curiosity.

“My birth mother,” Cassandra said “was born Sandra Wu-San. I did some digging, and she’s of Chinese descent. Just in case you were wondering the answer to the Cassandra Cain Nationality Question.”

“Huh,” Stephanie said. “You know, I never asked that question at all? I… I have no idea what kind of white person that makes me.”

“Anyway,” Cassandra said, “Sandra and her twin sister Carolyn were born in Detroit.”

_“Wow. _ That’s two generations of women with just… just _embarrassing _places of birth.”

“Stephanie…”

“I’ll laugh at you later, go on.”

“They were martial arts prodigies,” Cassandra said. “They toured the country from a young age performing sparring exhibitions of their skill. One of the people who attended these exhibitions was an assassin named David Cain.”

“Shit.”

“David Cain saw something in Sandra. So one night, he snuck into the hotel the Wu-San sisters were staying at, and murdered Carolyn Wu-San in cold blood.”

Stephanie hunched over the table, getting into it.

“Sandra went on the path of revenge,” Cassandra said. “Cut a bloody swath through criminal underworlds across the entire globe. Dozens, _hundreds _of goons and assassins died by her bare hands, until one day she got word of David Cain staying in a cabin on the banks of the Pardu River in Estonia.”

Cassandra took a sip of her shake.

“Off to Estonia Sandra went, trudging through waist-deep snow. She found the cabin where Cain was staying, and turned the door to splinters with just one punch. Sandra saw David Cain sitting in a chair by a roaring fire… got down on her knees… and thanked him.”

_“Thanked _him?” Stephanie asked, her voice almost cracking from the incredulity.

Cassandra nodded. “See, Sandra learned something killing all those people. Training with Carolyn had held her back. It took murder to make her truly great, to make her a warrior beyond her wildest dreams. She had gotten down on her knees as Sandra Wu-San, but she got back up again… as Lady Shiva.”

Stephanie just… turned… white.

“You… You’re _Lady Shiva’s _daughter?”

Cassandra nodded yet again. “I see you’ve heard of Lady Shiva.”

“I’ve heard _horror stories _of Lady Shiva,” Stephanie said. “I’ve heard of her slaughtering entire platoons of armed commandos with just a sword. I’ve heard of her sending the severed heads of people sent to kill her back to the men who hired them. There’s an unwritten rule in my line of work: Money’s well and good, but if you see Lady Shiva, you _run. _ She’s… She’s the fucking _Boogeyman!”_

“The Boogeyman is real,” Cassandra said. “And The Boogeyman found me.”

Another sip of shake. “She was waiting for me outside of rehearsal for a play one night. Said she knew from just looking at what little video footage there was of Black Bat that I was of her blood, and that she had spent years issuing challenges to the greatest fighters on Earth. Fights to the death. Because only in her death would she accept that her training was complete. So she made me a deal: Meet her at midnight on the roof of the Ace Chemical building and fight her until one of us stayed down for good, or she would kill ten citizens of Gotham City for every day I refused. So… of course, I accepted.”

Stephanie’s eyes were still wide, and almost unblinking.

“We met on the roof of the Ace Chemical building at midnight,” Cassandra said, laying on a bit of flourish to her voice. “We stared each other down. We got into our stances. We charged each other. And then…”

Stephanie was into it. She leaned forward. “And _then?”_

“And then… Conner flew up behind her at eighty miles an hour and slapped her in the back of the head.”

Cassandra had to smile broadly at how obviously let down by this story Stephanie was.

“She was unconscious for ten hours,” Cassandra said. “Lost six teeth… She’s still in Iron Heights…”

She lost her composure, and now it was Cassandra’s turn to start laughing like a crazy person when she said _“I don’t feel bad at all!”_

Her face felt like it was about to explode from the laughter. She managed to open her eyes wide enough to see Stephanie looking at her funny.

“Dude.”

_“What?”_

“The biggest fight of your life, and you had your _boyfriend _fight it for you?”

_“Yup.”_

“Why?”

Cassandra wiped a laughter-induced tear out of her eye, and said “I thought it would be funny.”

“You didn’t care to find out which of the two of you was the better fighter?”

“No,” Cassandra said, having finally calmed down. “Why would I give a shit about something like that? She was going to kill people and needed to be stopped. I don’t care if it was me who stopped her, or if it was Conner. There’s more to life than fighting, Steph. It took Mister Mxyzptlk telling me that there were infinite versions of Cassandra Cain out there in the Multiverse for me to realize that I can be and do whatever the hell I want. The world doesn’t end at my fist. I didn’t become Black Bat to get into pissing matches with every jackass who wanted to test me, blood relation or not. I became Black Bat to help people and save lives.”

Stephanie looked like she still had trouble swallowing this.

“Okay,” Cassandra said. “Let me put it this way: Lady Shiva was in that bunker in Arkansas giving birth to me thirty-three... almost thirty- _four _years ago. She knew what was going to happen in there. She could have saved her daughter from years of torture and abuse… and she did _nothing. _ When was the first time I met her? In my late twenties. When she fucking _wanted _something from me. Killing me or getting killed _by _me would have given her satisfaction that I was neither obliged nor inclined to give.”

She could see that Stephanie was still having trouble with this.

“Still,” Stephanie said. “Your mom, and all?”

Cassandra shook her head. “Barbara Gordon is my mom.”

And she said it with a finality that impressed even her.

“Look,” Cassandra said. “I don’t know if all those years spent in that bunker gave me these skills and abilities. And I don’t know if I somehow got them genetically from my birth mother. That was David Cain’s line of thinking when the two of them conceived me, after all. I live on a planet with Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man, so I’ve heard weirder. But what I _do _know is that Barbara Gordon taught me to read. She taught me how to write, how to talk, how to pick up after myself, how to eat without getting food in my hair, how to use a tampon, and how not to give in to the shitty and angry parts of myself. She taught me how to be a human being. I owe Babs _everything. _ And I don’t owe Shiva _shit.”_

And this, seemingly, satisfied Stephanie Brown. She nodded and said “I get it.”

“Good.”

“You’re sassy.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re _Arkan-Sassy!”_

“Listen here, bitch…”

Stephanie snorted, before she drank some more tea.

“Okay,” Stephanie said. “One more thing I’m curious about, before we can talk about… I dunno, movies or whatever.”

“Alright.”

“You said you became Black Bat to help people and save lives.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You became Black Bat.”

Cassandra nodded.

“But… why not _Batman?”_

It took a second for Cassandra to register this. Unintelligible words came up her throat, and refused to go any further.

No one in her life had gotten to the heart of the thing she had been thinking about for _years. _ No one except Stephanie.

And Cassandra had to remind herself:

_Don’t act. React._

“I thought,” Stephanie said, “that I would come back here, and Cassandra Cain would be Batwoman… but then I realized you’d never do that. Kate didn’t give you Batwoman. Bruce gave you Batman.”

She looked out the window and paused for a while. 

Still looking, she said “I think… that by the time this city was ready to stop grieving over Game Seven, Batman had gone. Black Bat was in his place. There’s a… a _hole _here that needs to be filled. Black Bat, no matter how amazing she is, ain’t gonna cut it. And I think you know it, too. There isn’t a whole lot of footage of you out there. Not a lot of stories. You’re trying to stay hidden. You’re not only not Batman, you don’t want anyone else _seeing _you not being Batman. So the question I have is…”

Stephanie looked at Cassandra.

“What’s it gonna take?”

Cassandra Wayne wanted to tell Stephanie Brown the entire truth.

Both of them would have to settle for a sliver of it.

Cassandra just shrugged, and said “When I act like it, I guess.”

It was then that their food finally, mercifully, arrived.

“Sorry it took so long,” the waitress said.

* * *

**THE FOUNDERS ISLAND WALGREENS ON PUCKETT STREET**

After they were finished eating, Cassandra and Stephanie asked for separate checks. Upon Stephanie’s request.

They walked three blocks over to the Walgreens on Puckett Street, so Stephanie could pick up provisions.

A toothbrush, of course.

A tube of lipstick for whatever reason, Cassandra didn’t see the color.

And then they went to the liquor aisle.

“Tequila?” Cassandra asked.

“I want to make a margarita before I go to bed… And there’s the mix, right there. You like ‘em?”

“I’m unopposed.”

“Good,” Stephanie said. “So you said you have charities?”

“Yup.”

_“Plural? _ As in more than one?”

Cassandra nodded, and they began their slow walk down the aisles looking for either nothing or everything.

“There’s The Pennyworth Fund,” she said, “offering arts education for disadvantaged kids.”

“High-minded,” Stephanie said.

“I gotta leave the ladder down after I go up,” Cassandra said. “And then there’s the EMGU.”

_“‘Em-Goo?’”_

“The Effort to Map Gotham’s Underground,” Cassandra said. “This city is old, and a lot of it has been forgotten or lost. Most of it comes from beneath. Because this city just builds over the shit it doesn’t like, pressing it further underground.”

“And this is… what?” Stephanie asked. “Like a historical preservation thing?”

“Kinda. It’s interesting.”

“I wasn’t the best history student in school.”

“History is the God’s Honest Tits. Were I ever an actual school student, I’d have been into history more than I would have been drama.”

“What’s the pull?” Stephanie asked.

“It’s what _happened,” _said Cassandra. “Like, I read books on Gotham City history for fun when I’m not reading mysteries. Old dossiers on the supervillains that used to be around here. I’m _particularly _interested in The Joker.”

“Why The Joker?”

“The Joker had this thing,” Cassandra said, “where he’d do something horrible, get arrested, and only then would the terror start. Like he _needed _to get caught and confined in order for his plan to work. And I keep thinking to myself _‘Why can’t the good guys do that?’”_

“And you share this little fascination of yours with Bruce?”

_“Hell _no.”

They both smiled at this, as they turned the corner and entered the toy aisle. The speakers above started softly playing _Automatic Driver _by LaRoux. Cassandra wondered who got paid to compile Walgreens playlists, and whether or not she could send an email to the corporation, begging that this person get a raise. ‘Cause God- _damn, _that was a deep cut from years ago.

“I have a question,” Cassandra said.

“I guess I should see to that, then.”

Cassandra took a deep breath and asked:

“Why didn’t you come out?”

Stephanie stopped walking. She looked at Cassandra placidly. Like she fucked up in so obvious a way that it had to be on purpose.

“That the kind of question you drop on a girl at midnight in the middle of a Walgreens?”

Cassandra reached into her pocket, and pulled out the activated Cone of Silence.

“Why I do believe it is,” Cassandra said.

Stephanie shrugged, and they recommenced their logy circuit of the Walgreens aisles.

“Let’s go down the list of most common reasons for a person--a girl, in particular--not to come out,” Stephanie said.

“Okay.”

“First, there’s The God Question. Won’t the all-powerful deity in the sky be cross with me for digging girls? Even though the Bible doesn’t mention lesbians, so I can rock as many ladies’ worlds as I want, and none of that goes in the sin column. But apart from that, though? The God Question doesn’t apply to me.”

“You don’t believe in God?”

“I don’t believe the existence of God is really any of my business.”

“That has to be the weirdest answer to The God Question I have ever heard.”

“I don’t bother Him, and He don’t bother me,” Stephanie said. “So let’s cross it off the list.”

“Crossed.”

“Moving on,” Stephanie said. “The Family Question. Will my family get mad at me? Again, non-applicable.”

“You don’t think your mother would have cared?” Cassandra asked, deftly dodging the issue of Stephanie’s father altogether.

“My mom was hooked on prescription pills,” Stephanie said. “And even when she was clean, she wasn’t particularly sharp. It isn’t so much a matter of her not _caring _as it is a matter of her not _noticing.”_

“It was that bad?”

“You never met Crystal, did you?”

“No,” Cassandra said. “In fact, I think you took great pains to keep yourself from introducing her to any of us.”

Stephanie sighed. “Let me put it this way: I could have been stark naked on the living room table, with Tessa Thompson screaming my name as I ate her out, and mom would have aimed the remote _over _us to change the channel to _Wheel of Fortune.”_

_“Wow.”_

“And now you know.”

“Crossed.”

“And moving on,” Stephanie said. “Then there’s The Professional Question. It was hard back in the day for folks who were out to get employment and stay employed. It’s only a little bit easier now. But again, it doesn’t apply to me.”

“Right,” Cassandra said. “Because your boss at your day job was Selina.”

“Exactly,” Stephanie said. “It’s hard to get fired for being gay when your boss tells you stories about how she tried to put the moves on one of The Riddler’s henchwomen back in the day. And it was only a matter of time before I got into the Justice League anyway. Get that stipend coming to me?”

“Right,” Cassandra said. “Crossed.”

They made their way to the register. Stephanie paid for her stuff with cash, and Cassandra noticed that she used a fake ID with the name of Natalie Venora to buy her tequila.

Cassandra and Stephanie walked out through the automatic doors and into the mist-smeared streets. The traffic was light, and echoed from the blocks beyond. The only other sign of life were two men animatedly conversing next to a vehicle outside a bar.

“Where was I?” Stephanie asked.

“You just left off on The Professional Question.”

“Right. Then there’s The Safety Question. There are a lot of men out there who get all hand-throwy at either the sight or the mention of women who have absolutely no use for them. Yet again, this really doesn’t apply to me.”

She reached out, took Cassandra’s hand, and pointed the the Band-Aids covering the bite marks on the pinky and ring fingers. She took a momentary break from hanging on to to every word in the conversation to reflect that Cassandra’s fingers were the least interesting part of her body to wind up in Stephanie Brown’s mouth that evening.

“In case you haven’t noticed,” Stephanie said with a grin, “I am The Cure for the Common Motherfucker. You really think some jagoff with _‘1488’ _tattooed on his dick is gonna last more than a few seconds with me after I beat Damian Wayne into a red puddle?”

Cassandra nodded, grateful that she did not also mention she took Black Bat to the distance. “Crossed,” she said. “Anything else?”

“Well, yeah,” Stephanie said. “The issue of my partner’s safety. Now that _would _apply to me… if it weren’t for the fact that my partner in all these imaginary scenarios was _you.”_

“You’re not worried anyone would pick a fight with me just because I’d be dating a girl?” Cassandra asked.

The two of them looked at each other with stony faces for a second… before they started laughing.

After the laughing quelled itself, Cassandra and Stephanie just stared at the sidewalk.

“Shit,” Stephanie said. “If I were going out with you back in the day, I’d have _started _shit with people like that. Just to see the looks on their faces when they got destroyed. Hand to God.”

“You gave me all the reasons why not,” Cassandra said. “You feel up to telling me the reason _why?”_

Stephanie went from looking at the sidewalk, to looking at the sky, before she settled back down on Cassandra with a far-away expression.

“Would you believe me,” Stephanie asked, “if I said it was a matter of honor?”

“Honor?”

“Yeah,” Stephanie said softly. “Honor. Us ex-superhero types are big on it. See… All these thoughts and emotions I had were about you. Now a decent person, an _honorable _person, she, um… She would have told you first. Before anyone else. Because it wasn’t anyone’s business but yours. I would have. I could have. But…”

Stephanie squinted a little bit, and huffed. Telltale signs of the conscious mind in the rough act of self-interrogation.

“But then a strange fear gripped me, and I just couldn’t ask,” Stephanie said. “You should have been the first to know. You weren’t. It wasn’t the way I wanted it to pan out, but…”

The act came back. Paper-thin bravado. Stephanie shrugged her shoulders, spread her arms, adopted a goony grin.

“But oh well, right? I grew up. It happens. A little less drama in me. Replaced by about a gallon of piss and vinegar.”

“Less drama?”

“Sixty-eight percent drama-free.”

“You entered my apartment with the intent of getting into a fistfight with me.”

“I said sixty-eight percent. There’s still thirty… thirty- _two _percent left over from the good ol’ days.”

She shrugged.

And Cassandra became vaguely aware that the two men across the street, wearing horizontal-striped t-shirts that emphasized both their brawny arms as well as their expanding guts, were looking at them.

Madness overtook Cassandra. She was imbued with the berserker spirit of Viking ancestors that she wasn’t sure for a fact that she actually had.

She stepped forward. She grabbed both sides of Stephanie’s face. She got on her tiptoes for leverage. And she planted the kind of kiss on Stephanie Brown that would have been the centerpiece of a Douglas Sirk movie. The kind of kiss that made one feel their pulse in their lips after it ended. For when the kiss ended, that was precisely what Cassandra felt.

Stephanie looked at Cassandra with open-mouthed shock. She looked over at the two dudes across the street (who were definitely looking at the two of them), before casting her stunned gaze back.

_“Cass, what the fuck are you doing?”_

The right side of Cassandra’s lips listed off in a sneer. There was a lock of black hair in her eye that she refused to remove. She cracked her knuckles.

“I’m sorry, I have no idea what’s coming over me.”

One of the guys across the street, the one on the right, yelled out _“Hey!”_

And that’s when the pre-fight buzz started. If these two had a problem with Cassandra kissing the girl she liked in public, then their problems would multiply once she bent them over backwards and jammed their heads up their asses. It would have been her third fight of the evening, and she was feeling fresh all of a sudden.

When the guy on the right called from across the street:

_“Are you Cassandra Wayne?_

Her heart stopped. She… was not expecting that.

“Umm… _Yeah!” _Cassandra called out.”

_“What?” _the guy on the right said.

Cassandra muttered _“Shit…” _to herself, reached into her jacket, and turned off the Cone of Silence that she had left on.

_“Yeah!” _she called out again.

The two men quietly and quickly conversed with each other, before the one on the right called out again.

_“Can we come over and talk to you?”_

Cassandra looked at Stephanie, who seemed even more mystified about the recent turn of events she was.

_“Sure!” _Cassandra finally said, and waved them over.

The one on the right looked both ways before crossing the street. The one on the left did not. The closer they got, the more she saw how bro-ish they were. The red blossoms on their pink faces denoted at least light drunkenness.

“Hi,” the one on the right side said. “I’m Chris, and this here is Luther. I just gotta say, you were _really _good in that show where you played Harley Quinn.”

Cassandra just blinked, stunned, before she said “Wow, um... Thanks. Though I hope you don’t mind my saying, but you guys don’t look like the theater crowd.”

“We ain’t,” Luther said. “Our kids go to the same school. Us, the kids, and the wives went to the show because our kids’ history teacher was giving out extra credit if they brought in ticket stubs.”

“Oh.”

“But we enjoyed it,” Chris said. “Didn’t think we would. Like we said, we’re not theater people. Best extra credit my daughter ever got. Look in the program after and I say to everyone _‘Holy shit, that’s Bruce Wayne’s kid!’”_

“Glad we helped.”

“You gonna be in any more shows?” Chris asked.

“Yes,” Cassandra said. “I’m gonna be auditioning for this show adapted from a video game that came out about fifteen years ago.

“A video game?”

“Yeah. It’s about this drunk detective who wakes up with amnesia and all his emotions start talking to him. They want me for one of the emotions. They want to cast me as Physical Instrument, but I think I’d make a better Inland Empire.”

Chris nodded and said “I don’t get it.” at the same time.

“It might be one of those things you have to see to get.”

“Guess so.”

“Before we go any further,” said Luther, “you mind if I ask just what the hell happened to you two?”

Without missing a beat, Cassandra touched the side of her bruised face, and asked “You ever race mopeds?”

Luther nodded, smiled, and said “Say no more.”

Chris got his phone out. “Mind if we take a picture?”

“Sure,” Cassandra said.

Chris started to move forward, but stopped when he saw Stephanie.

“You must be the girlfriend,” he said.

Stephanie looked like she’d been accused of a crime she did not commit, even though Chris and Luther had to have seen Cassandra and Stephanie kiss from across the street. And all that came out of her mouth was “Uhhhhhhhhhhhh…”

“You want in the picture?” Chris asked.

Cassandra didn’t let her answer. She reached out her hand with a shit-eating grin on her face and said “Come on into the picture, doll!”

Because she thought it would be _funny, _you see.

Stephanie got close to Cass. She had a smile on her face that enabled her to clench her teeth. And in a low voice, Cassandra heard her say _“You little shit…”_

To which Cassandra replied, in an equally low voice through equally clenched teeth, _“Bitch, you broke my kitchen table…”_

Chris and Luther got their selfie with Cassandra and Stephanie, before stepping away.

“Thanks,” said Luther.

“You’re welcome,” said Cassandra. “And tell your kids Harley says Hi.”

“We will,” Chris said. “You two have a good one.”

“We’ll try.”

And off Chris and Luther went, back across the street. Cassandra looked at Stephanie.

But Stephanie was staring off into space. The look in her blue eyes was a strange one. Like her world went from 4K to 8K, and she was looking for differences in the shadows and textures.

“What is it?” Cassandra asked.

After a moment of looking around, Stephanie said “This was the dream. You know that, right?”

Cassandra tilted her head. “The dream?”

Stephanie didn’t say anything for a moment. She was still looking around.

“When I was a kid,” Stephanie finally said, “I wanted you to talk to me _so _bad. I wanted to talk to _you. _ I wanted us to understand each other. And this… This is the dream.” 

Cassandra nodded. There was an enormity to this with which she did not want to grapple. If there was a spell at work, she did not want to break it.

“Do I live up to the hype?” she asked.

Stephanie looked at Cassandra for less than a second. Her face had the stillness of utter and aching sincerity. But her face looked down at the sidewalk yet again.

When it came back up, her eyes were scrunched up and her lips were done in an exaggerated frown. She held her hand out flat, and wavered it.

_“Ehhhhhhhh.”_

Cassandra lightly kicked her in the shin. 


	20. Tongue Twisters

**Chapter 20: Tongue Twisters**

**THE RH KANE BUILDING**

It is the dispiriting duty of this humble narrative to inform that Cassandra Wayne and Stephanie Brown did _not _go for Round Four upon returning to Cassandra’s apartment. They had a margarita apiece, brushed their teeth, and went to bed, each wearing their undies and a t-shirt (or, in Stephanie’s case, Cass’ old gym shorts).

Cassandra awoke the following dreary morning with a headache from the previous evening’s fight (a first for her in many years) and an empty bed.

There was, however, a note on the nightstand next to Cassandra’s queen-sized bed.

She practically had to swim to the other side of her king-sized bed to get to it. She reached out for it with her bandaged left hand while she wiped the sleep-boogers out of her eyes with her right. She opened the note and read it while on her stomach above her thick black comforter.

_I didn’t ditch.  
_ _I’ll see you later.  
_ _There’s just something I have to do today._

And it was signed with a lip print, done in purple lipstick.

_No._

_Not purple._

_Eggplant._

This had to have been the lipstick Stephanie got from Walgreens the night before. Cassandra had to wonder just what the hell kind of extra a person had to be to buy an entire tube of lipstick just to sign a note with their lips. There had to come a point where one had to think _“Eh, screw it, I’ll just use the same pen I wrote the letter with.”_

Then Cassandra had to wonder about the place at which she bought it. If it carried the precise shade that Stephanie needed, then the Founders Island Walgreens on Puckett Street must be the best stocked Walgreens on planet Earth. At least as far as their cosmetics aisle went.

Cassandra managed a grin, before she felt the morning breath in her mouth, and dropped her face into the pillow.

It was the pillow that Stephanie had slept on the night before.

Cassandra didn’t _mean _to breathe in Stephanie’s scent once she was down there… But once she was down there, she had to talk herself out of doing it any further.

* * *

**BURNSIDE CEMETERY**

Stephanie caught a cab on the curb in front of the RH Kane Building as Cassandra slept.

The first stop was at the hotel to change into a set of clothes that fit her. And some actual _underwear, _by God. Gym shorts worked, but there was still the feeling of going commando under two layers instead of just the one. It was its own brand of icky.

Once in her own clothes yet again, she got back in the cab (the cabbie kept the meter running), and she made her way to her second stop.

The Burnside Cemetery.

Much like flies and their inexorable yearning for cowshit, hipsters were drawn to Burnside. Rare in urban covens for the too-too-trendy across the United States, the gentrification of Burnside was not the result of the eviction and pricing out of minorities and the poor. Some forty years before, the Burnside section of mainland Gotham City (located near the offramp to the bridge leading to Bleake Island) was a large golf course whose owner defaulted on his loans. Hello, foreclosure. A consortium of Bleake Island factory owners--most notable among them Sionis Steel--bought the land cheap, erected apartment buildings, and heavily promoted this new cheap lodging to their workers. After all, some of that money they were paying them could wind up back in their pockets through rent.

Was this legal? No. But then again, this was Gotham City, and no one was going to check.

Recessions are a motherfucker, though, ain’t they? One of those hit before the apartment buildings were due to open. Hello, downsizing. And the consortium of Bleake Island factory owners no longer had a big enough worker base to get a return on investment, thus multiplying their economic woes. The factories went under, the apartment buildings stood empty, and for fifteen years, it was a question of who actually owned them.

In came Wayne Enterprises, who spruced them up and opened them with the intent of providing low-cost housing to the people who needed it the most. The problem here being, Burnside was situated right next to the rough-and-tumble mob section of Tricorner, and the people who would have ideally benefited from this housing refused to uproot and move. Yeah, the East End was a shithole, but at least it was relatively _safe._

However these cheap apartments served as a clarion call for that special breed of citizen that lacked both self-awareness and the instinct for self-preservation.

Enter The Hipster.

Bring me your tired, your fashionably poor, your trust-fund novelists, your experimental performance artists, your post-post-post-modern cubist painters, your white girls with the one long and matted and turd-looking dreadlock hanging off the back of their heads, yearning to be chic. All the microbreweries and bicycle stores of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, with none of the white guilt. God bless America. And Mommy and Daddy’s checking account.

Stephanie lazily gazed through the back window as the cab pulled up to the base of Burnside Cemetery. It was three sections separated by two gleaming white gravel pathways. And today, like a majority of the days Stephanie had been in Gotham this stretch, the landscape was covered in a medium film of fog.

“Keep the meter running,” Stephanie said.

“You’re putting my kids through college,” the cabbie said. “You know that, right?”

Burnside Cemetery was well-maintained and expansive. As she made her way up, white gravel crunched beneath her sneakers.

She got her phone out and ran a search on the cemetery’s website. Lot E-21 was where she needed to go.

Stephanie found the tail end of Row E and walked past five headstones on her way to E-21.

The final resting place of Crystal Jennifer Brown.

Stephanie stared down at her mother’s simple white headstone, and tried to empty herself of all conscious emotion, trying to let whatever she thought she needed to feel seep in.

Nothing came.

Once upon a time, Stephanie Brown cultivated a dark and knotty resentment for her mother. Her dad had routinely beat and humiliated Stephanie from a young age, and Crystal had done nothing to stop it. Oftentimes, it seemed to young Stephanie that Crystal entered the line for her own abuse at the hands of Arthur Brown with the same glazed placidity that cows had in slaughterhouses.

But it seemed to Stephanie that time had mellowed her.

Not everyone was born with the spark in them to jump in front of the bullet. To leap off of the building. To fire the grapnel gun. To protect the innocent from harm. If that were the case, there’d be more superheroes in the world than civilians.

Stephanie, upon getting that Google Alert about Crystal’s death at the hands of a stroke years ago, tried to kindle that resentment yet again, but it just… didn’t happen.

The fact of the matter was if she were to blame her mother for failing to shield an innocent from harm, then she’d have to blame everyone else too. And she just didn’t have it in her. The world was just too human for that.

In the act of surveying her feelings, which seemed to shift in and out of focus, Stephanie heard footsteps treading upon the white gravel behind her.

She sighed, closed her eyes, and got herself ready to lightly chide Cassandra for following her here.

Stephanie turned around to see not Cassandra, but Selina Wayne advancing on her through the fog. There in black slacks and a black turtleneck beneath a black overcoat, the most striking bit of her being the fake gray streaks in her long, loose, black hair

“Hey,” said Stephanie.

“Hey,” said Selina. “I thought you’d make it here eventually. It gave me an excuse to drive around the city.”

Stephanie nodded, and turned back to the gravestone. And Selina walked up to Stephanie, putting her arm around the shoulder of her black pea coat.

“She got clean,” Selina said. “In the end, I mean.”

Stephanie blinked, not looking at her. “She did?”

“Yeah,” Selina said. “Offered her a job at Kyle Security, with substance abuse programs and psychological therapy included in the benefits package. No one in this city was going to offer Crystal a job after her estranged husband blew up almost seventy-thousand people.”

“Thank you,” Stephanie said.

“She moved out here to Burnside,” Selina said. “It’s why she’s buried here. She took up painting.”

Stephanie furrowed her brow. _ “Painting?”_

Selina nodded. “Landscapes, mostly. They weren’t very good, but it seemed to make her happy. You didn’t know your mom was into painting?”

Stephanie shook her head. She hadn’t known her mother to so much as draw a stick figure, let alone attempt something as relatively ambitious as a landscape.

This knowledge engendered a kind of strange weightlessness within Stephanie’s body. She had somehow missed complexity. She was unaware of another’s rich interior life.

But then again… Stephanie was one to talk. In more ways than one.

She took the silence to ponder the possibility that Stephanie and Crystal Brown, mother and daughter, had to separate to become who they’d needed to be. And Stephanie felt compelled to weigh whether or not that was a victorious thing, or a tragic one.

It turned out, in the end, it was just a thing, with no tendrils of morality or fate to weigh it down. It was just something that happened. Editorialization from the universe was neither present nor required.

Standing there at her mother’s grave, Stephanie Brown… _acknowledged… _her mother.

It wasn’t forgiveness. That would be a long time coming, if it ever came at all.

But _acknowledgement?_

Yeah.

She could do that. A simple nod of the head in recognition of the fact that they both shared the same world at the same time, and tried to get through the endurance trial of life itself the best they could.

“I’m ready to go,” Stephanie said.

“Nothing to say?” Selina asked.

Stephanie sighed yet again.

“I remember,” Stephanie said, “when I was about twelve or so, she told me _‘Steph, I may not be the smartest, I may not be the wisest, but one thing I’ll never fail you on, the one thing I’m best at, the one thing I’ll never steer you wrong about… is my advice on boys.’”_

Silence followed.

Then, like cracks of sunlight breaching a thick cloud, a snort of laughter escaped Selina Wayne.

“I’m sorry,” Selina said, her face cracking.

“It’s alright,” Stephanie said. “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t think it was funny.”

“It’s a graveyard, though.”

“And?”

Selina quickly padded along the grass to the white gravel, a seeming sanctuary for her giggle-fit.

Stephanie followed.

Then they began their long amble down the gravel path to Selina’s car and Stephanie’s cab.

“How’s Bruce?” Stephanie asked.

“Right now,” Selina said, “he’s down at the Crime Alley clinic, pressing Talia for info about the Arkham Knight. Other than that, he’s in a wrestling match with his own stoicism. The patented Bruce Wayne form of grief. You mind telling me what the hell happened to your face?” 

Stephanie felt no need to go into specifics about that subject other than “I got into a fight.”

At which Selina simply smiled. “Welcome back to Gotham.”

They both regarded the Gotham City skyline: a craggy collection of pointy buildings wedged firmly in the ass-crack of a near-impenetrable slate gray sky.

“This place missed you,” Selina said.

“I highly doubt that.”

“It’s true,” said Selina. “You leave Gotham City to its own devices for too long, it gets all serious. It needs someone who came from nothing to blow a raspberry or two. Call bullshit when needed. Otherwise, it’s just rich people hocking loogies at other rich people. No flavor and no texture.”

“You sure I’m the one you’re talking about?” Stephanie asked. “I seem to remember a cat burglar from not too long ago.”

“I fucking hate cat puns,” Selina said, “but I’m an indoor kitty now. I’m… _Old.”_

“Not _that _old.”

“Which is still old enough,” Selina said. “I’ve gone establishment. You wanna know the truly awful thing?”

“What’s that?”

Selina stopped walking. “I actually _like _it.” 

Which was enough of a revelation for Stephanie to stop walking herself.

“We’re bunkering up,” Selina said. “Everyone at Wayne Manor. Jason, Cass, Tim, Violet…”

“Ugh.”

“...even Harper and Babs. Come with me.”

“I can’t,” Stephanie said. “I have a couple of--”

“No you don’t,” Selina said. “I paid off your cabbie. Wanna tear around the city in a Mercedes with your old boss?”

“You… you paid off my cabbie?”

Selina nodded.

Stephanie’s brow lowered the more the gravity of the situation fell on her. “That’s… That’s really _dangerous. _ You could have been _anyone.”_

“I know, right?”

“I was putting that asshole’s _kids _through college…” 

* * *

**THE THOMAS WAYNE MEMORIAL CLINIC**

Bruce Wayne pulled his pickup truck to the curb outside of the Crime Alley clinic, fed the meter, and went inside.

He saw Doctor Jenkins sitting behind the main desk on what was apparently a slow day. She was filling out the Gotham _Gazette _crossword puzzle. In ink, no less.

He gave her a nod of the head. “Doctor Jenkins.”

“Mister Wayne,” she said in reply.

Bruce took a right and walked down the hall to the rear care ward.

Talia al Ghul, sitting in a blue plastic chair in jeans and a white button-up, was holding the hand of her husband, the Black Manta, David Hyde… whose soulless brown eyes were open in the midst of his otherwise bandaged face.

Bruce stopped and stood by the doorway. Talia looked at him, and then looked back at David.

And David’s hand raised, slow and wobbly, and beckoned Bruce toward him.

Bruce slowly walked the few paces to the bedside.

“Manta,” Bruce said, keeping his voice flat.

David’s voice came out in a low hiss, most likely due to heavy sedation.

“So… you’re the one… who kicked our asses… all those years.”

Bruce simply nodded.

“If The Joker…” David said, “were still alive… he’d die… all over again.”

Bruce didn’t say anything.

“You keep… Aaliyah… safe.”

“She’s surrounded by people who will give their lives in a second to protect the innocent,” said Bruce.

“Good,” David said. “Now… Get outta my face… Makes me sick… just looking at you.”

“The feeling’s mutual,” said Bruce.

Talia put her arm on David’s bare shoulder, and said “Rest, Beloved. Rest.”

Bruce noticed the deep well in her silky voice. She called someone _“Beloved,” _and it was not him. And while there was no force on this Earth that could pull him from Selina Wayne, it still felt odd to hear it. Like when he was a child, and he had to get used to the new teeth that grew in.

“I know you wish to see me,” Talia said. “May we do this in the hallway, please?”

Bruce nodded. He stepped back to allow Talia to go ahead of him. Ladies first, after all.

Once they were out in the hallway, they leaned against the walls on opposite sides, and just locked eyes. Each studying how old the other had gotten.

Talia spoke first.

“The beard is a nice touch.”

Bruce stayed silent.

“Have you have any regrets?”

“No,” Bruce said immediately.

“Nor I.”

Then more silence. And for a second time, Talia took it upon herself to speak.

“Do you wish me to extend my condolences?” she asked. “Do you wish me to tell you how sorry I am that Dick Grayson is dead? I am not.”

Bruce tilted his head and glared.

“Every person you surround yourself with dilutes you. You have festooned your inner sanctum with your inferiors, and shed tears when they fall. You have lessened yourself. Your stubborn insistence upon relying on others who would hold you back is alien to me. I am not sad Dick Grayson is dead at all.”

Bruce fought off the instant urge to tell Talia that he hadn’t shed a tear since Dick died. But there was no way that that would sound good to anyone he knew who would listen, Talia included.

But Bruce had to marvel at the steely, unblinking way with which Talia had said this. Motherhood hadn’t made her a better person. It just took her out of the game. She was still the same monster that would still hold a small, dark place in his heart, ready to put an entire city of nine million people at risk just to win him back.

She hadn’t changed.

Bruce, in lieu of saying anything, reached into the pocket of his blue blazer and handed her his phone.

“Press the screen to start the footage.”

“I know how a phone works, Bruce.”

She pressed the screen, and watched the soundless footage of the Arkham Knight at the Gotham Royal. First killing Dick Grayson, and then savagely beating her husband within an inch of his life.

Talia watched it all without so much as blinking before the footage ended, and she handed the phone back to him.

“He seems impressive,” Talia said.

“She.”

“She?”

“She’s calling herself _‘The Arkham Knight,’” _Bruce said. “And she’s in league with your father. Ra’s is in town, he’s behind all this. He wants to kill _your _daughter, and then marry _my _daughter to provide him that heir he’s always wanted. And yesterday, Dick’s body was stolen from the morgue. Heaven only knows what Ra’s wants with it. Talia, if you have any…”

Bruce stopped himself when he saw that Talia had gone rigid, her eyes wide.

“Talia?”

“The Arkham Knight,” she said. “My God… Has it been so _long?”_

* * *

**ARKHAM ASYLUM**

Arkham Asylum has its own morgue.

And upon the slab where hundreds of inmates had been autopsied over the long and violent decades, there rested a green sleeping bag and a small white pillow with no case.

Into the morgue walked a woman in her early twenties, wearing a blue cotton bodysuit that clung to her. It was the bottom-most layer for a suit of high-tech armor.

This was the Soldier-in-Blue.

This was the Arkham Knight.

The bodysuit hung to a tall and formidable wall of hard muscle, which had been the result of a literal lifetime of training. This bodysuit covered the host of scar tissue all over her body.

But it did not cover her head, and there were a multitude around the circumference of her shaved skull. A couple on her cheeks, a few decorating her scalp, two long ones in the back extending from the occipital bulge on down to the neck.

The centerpiece, however, was the bright pink flatness where, on another person, a left ear would have been.

For when Ra’s al Ghul asked her if he had her love, she said he had it with all of her heart.

When Ra’s al Ghul asked her if he had her loyalty, she said he had it with every fiber of her being.

And when Ra’s al Ghul asked for her ear as proof of said love and said loyalty, she gave it happily. She did not cry out when she took the straight razor to it. She did not even blink.

The Arkham Knight sat upon the metal slab, reached into the sleeping bag, and pulled out a phone, which was connected to an overhead projector that she had installed. She thumbed through a few files, before eventually setting on the one she wanted.

The image that was projected on the morgue’s white wall, an instant frozen in time, was that of a man with green hair, a ghastly white face, and lips the color of blood. He was in a straightjacket, and he was looking up and to his left.

The Arkham Knight sighed. She ran a thick, calloused hand over the top of her head, feeling the blonde stubble on her palm.

And then she pressed Play on her phone.

The image came alive, and the brightly colored fellow in the straightjacket whipped his head around, looking in amusement.

A female voice with a Scandinavian accent came in over the speakers The Arkham Knight had hooked up.

_“This is Doctor Ingrid Karlsson… First patient interview… with The Joker.”_

* * *

**THE THOMAS WAYNE MEMORIAL CLINIC**

“I seem to remember when Bane broke your back,” Talia said. “You were out for a while.”

“What about it?” asked Bruce.

“Father had no faith in you,” Talia said. “He did not think you would recover. I only had eyes for you, and it seemed the heir he longed for so would be a great time in the offing. If it ever came from you at all.”

Talia folded her arms and took her former position of leaning against the hallway wall.

“This, of course, came on the heels of the failure of one of his little projects. The One-Who-Is-All that was to have been provided for him by David Cain. The perfect killing machine.”

“My daughter,” Bruce said with a deep and forbidding tone, letting Talia know to put some respect on Cassandra’s name, should it fly out of her mouth.

“The very same,” Talia said. “The venture was a bust. No matter the years of assurances David gave that little Cassandra would return to him, she never did. It seems father was out a luminary. So he did what all immortals do. He waited.”

“Waited for what?”

“For an opportunity to present itself,” said Talia. “That opportunity came when you recovered from your little mishap with Bane, and donned the cowl yet again.”

“How was that his opportunity?” Bruce asked.

“The first night you appeared once you had healed,” Talia said, “was when you quelled a riot at Arkham Asylum.”

* * *

**ARKHAM ASYLUM**

On the old interview tape that the Arkham Knight watched, The Joker was singing.

“‘Why are we here? What’s life all about? Is God really real? Or is there some doubt? Well tonight, we’re going to sort it all out. For tonight, it’s…’”

The offscreen Doctor Ingrid Karlsson finished for him.

_“The meaning of life,” _Karlsson said.

_“Does there have to be meaning?” _The Joker asked. _ “If there’s a point to all of this, then I can miss it. And my rap sheet tells you how proud I am of my aim.”_

_“It’s nice to have a framework for your actions,” _Karlsson said. _“Not just yours, but anyone’s. There doesn’t have to a blanket meaning for all people. It can be a meaning we can apply for ourselves. It gives our lives’ work context.”_

“Context is for kings,” said The Joker. _ “That is what Socrates said… Or was it _Star Trek? _ I can never remember.”  
  
__"I wish to know your context,” _Karlsson said.

The Joker let off a high, perverted giggle.

“Do _you, now?” _he asked. _ “You really wanna start digging? I have to tell ya, Doc. Great minds have brushed against me, and broke. I convinced someone who once sat in that chair to open his wrists with his own teeth. In fact, I can devote some of the highlights of my romantic life to do-gooder doctors who stuck their noses where they didn’t belong and got caught in the whirlwind. So tell me straight, Doc... Why do you _really _want in?”_

_“Well,” _Karlsson said, _“can you keep a secret?”_

The Joker’s green eyes lit up. _ “Ooooooh! _ Secret _time! Oh, I _love _those! _ _Doctor Arkham didn’t try to tell you not to tell me anything about yourself? Those who fall in get stuck, you know.”_

_“He did,” _Karlsson said. _“But every once in a while, one has to live dangerously.”_

_“I agree wholeheartedly,” _The Joker said. _“Except for the _‘every once in a while’ _part. So c’mon, Doc! Tell ol’ Mister J why you want to pick his brain.”_

The Joker leaned in, one ear facing the offscreen Doctor Karlsson, apparently so he could get all of it.

And Doctor Ingrid Karlsson said:

_“I want to help you.”_

The Joker looked at her with eyes wide, before he started laughing. It was so loud that it blew out some of the audio on the camera upon which this interview had been recorded.

_“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh,” _The Joker said. _“It’s been a while since someone pulled a prank like that on me. You go on the Wall of Fame.”_

_“It’s no prank.”_

_“Sure,” _The Joker said. _ “Keep it going. You’ll be Andy Kaufman-tier in no time.”_

“Is it so hard to believe?”

“Yes,” The Joker said, the joviality in his voice disappearing, only to be replaced with cold cruelty. _“Now you’re just pretending to be stupid. I _hate that. _ No one puts on the doctor’s ID in this place without trawling for interview material in hopes of getting a book deal. I’m a bestseller mine that’s actually claimed lives. But here you are, putting on the Fake Nice Girl Act, hoping I’ll open up. C’mon, Doc, what are you gonna call the book? Don’t tell me you don’t have any titles rattling around in that noggin of yours.”_

_“I do not want to write a book,” _Karlsson said.

_“You seriously expect me to believe that?”_

_“If you knew how many research papers I had to write at Aarhus University, you would know that I am in no way inclined to write a book.”_

_“Really?” _The Joker asked. _ “You don’t want to go on _The View _and talk about your book? You don’t want to meet Meghan McCain?”_

_“I cannot tell you how averse I am to the concept of meeting Meghan McCain.”_

_“Why not?” _The Joker asked. _ “I do. She could feed SO MANY PEOPLE!”_

_“Is my desire to help you without hopes for personal gain truly the most impossible thing you have come across in your lifetime?”_

_“No,” _The Joker said. _ “That would be the time I saw The Penguin in the shower when me and some of my guys broke into the Iceberg without him knowing it. Say Doc, when The Penguin pees, do you think he needs a system of pulleys to lift his gut so he doesn’t splash all over himself?”_

_“Wow,” _Karlson said, apparently taking the matter seriously. _ “I don’t know. I suppose--”_

The Joker cut her off. “‘Moses supposes his toeses are roses, but Moses supposes erroneously.’”

Without missing a beat, Doctor Karlsson said “‘For Moses he knowses his toeses aren’t roses, as Moses supposes his toeses to be.’”

This visibly caught The Joker off-guard. His green eyes went wide, and the ever-present smile on his face vanished. He leaned in with a curious expression.

“‘Now Kissel will whistle at busty Miss Russell, who’ll rustle and bustle till Kissel will roar…’”

Karlsson finished for him. “‘So Russell asked Axel for Kissel’s dismissal, and this’ll teach Kissel to whistle no more.’”

It was as though The Joker discovered a new species. His green eyes almost glowed with an internal fire.

“‘Tito and Tato were tattooed in total, but Toto was only tattooed on his toe…’”

For a third time, Doctor Ingrid Karlsson finished. “‘So Tato told Tito where Toto was tattooed, but Tito said Toto’s tattoo wouldn’t show.’”

The Joker sat there gobsmacked, his mouth hanging open, before he began to laugh. But this time it was veined with genuine amusement, it pulsated with honest warmth.

And if one could hear a higher counterpoint to this laughter, almost in harmony, then one would would have heard Doctor Ingrid Karlsson laughing right along with him.

At the end of his laughter, The Joker said _“I have to say, Doc: It sure is a rare thing to meet a fellow Danny Kaye fan out in the wild.”_

The Arkham Knight smiled at this when she turned the interview off.

* * *

**THE THOMAS WAYNE MEMORIAL CLINIC**

“I remember that riot,” said Bruce. “A doctor on staff died that night. Doctor Ingrid Karlsson.”

“You just _remember _such things?”

“She was killed by a Batarang,” Bruce said. “How do you propose I _forget _it? An idiot security guard picked it up as a souvenir while I was dealing with The Victim Syndicate, only to throw it at four supervillains who’d made it out of their cells. It missed all of them, and hit an innocent woman after she had just given birth.”

“And that newly birthed little girl,” Talia said, “was of great interest to my father.”

“Why?”

“I’ve told you,” Talia said with a grin that mixed both mischief and nostalgia. “The Cain experiment failed, but the idea was a sound one. Create a soldier from the moment of their birth, give them the skill, and they will carry your agenda into the future. The problem father had with David Cain was that his method of teaching provided no ideology. Cassandra Cain was a weapon, not a believer. But _here _was a child that would believe everything my father told her in his pursuit to destroy you… Or bring you to our side. Her mother did, after all, die by one of your objects.”

“And that’s all it would take?” Bruce asked. “Her mother got hit by a stray Batarang, so Batman must be the bad guy?”

“It is a little more complicated than that,” Talia said. “We were able to procure security footage from Arkham Asylum. Every bit as authentic as it is woefully misleading. I must hypothesize that, to this very day, Astrid Arkham believes you murdered her mother.”

Bruce felt his blood run cold.

“Astrid Arkham? That’s her name?”

“Oh yes,” said Talia. “You knew who her mother was, but you did not ask who was the father? We ran the tests. It was Jeremiah Arkham. The head of the asylum. The last scion of an old Gotham City family who did not wish to be disinherited by his elderly mother for siring a child out of wedlock with an employee like Doctor Ingrid Karlsson. He seemingly had no trouble letting his illegitimate newborn daughter go into the foster system. Doctor Karlsson was from Denmark, by the way. We picked a suitably Scandinavian name for the child. Astrid just... _stuck.”_

Talia folded her arms, and walked into the middle of the hall.

“A week after that riot,” Talia said, “you embarked, with the rest of the costumed detritus that infests this city, on a mad quest to liberate it from the clutches of Bane.”

“The Great Gotham Team-Up,” Bruce said. “That’s what they call it, anyway.”

“And you remember, Bruce: Neither my father and I were in attendance for that event.”

“Let me guess…”

“We were liberating the then-eight-day-old Astrid Arkham from her city-provided shelter.”

“Did you kill the people who were looking after her?”

Talia rolled her eyes. “Please, Bruce. We are not savages. We bought the child fairly, and without bloodshed.”

Bruce felt his stomach sour at those words.

“It was a foundation built upon a lie,” Talia said, “but my father built it nonetheless.”

“Why?” Bruce asked. “There are easier ways to train soldiers than this convoluted… _whatever _this is.”

Talia saighed. “It is as I said. Father had no faith in you. You rose after Bane broke you, you put on the cowl again. But even in a best case scenario, even if you came to me with open arms and helped me bring forth a son that would lead the League of Assassins into a new age, there would still be elements that would attempt to keep such an event from coming to pass.”

“Elements?” Bruce asked. “What do you mean?”

“Open your eyes, Bruce. The people whom you have _surrounded _yourself with! If you came to me, to father, to the League of Assassins, do you _seriously _think that Alfred Pennyworth would have let you go? Dick Grayson? Jason Todd? Barbara Gordon? _Selina Kyle? _ That is why father needed to train Astrid from her first conscious thought. To… ease your transition. One way or another.”

“You mean kill them.” Bruce’s inflection did not make this sound like a question.

Talia settled her gaze upon him. “If there was nothing keeping you in Gotham City, then there would have been nothing keeping you from _us. _ You have embedded yourself with people who love you. You have also surrounded yourself with people who have talent. Need I point to the endless battery of warriors and soldiers that you and your insane simulacrum of a family have beaten into hospital beds over the decades? The task at hand required a single soldier with specialized training. And evidently resources, if the past few days have been anything to go by. She has advanced technology and an army at her back.”

Bruce closed his eyes, and tried to bring this craziness into a kind of focus. It was… _difficult._

“Astrid Arkham would have been one year old by the time The Joker died, and I took my hiatus,” Bruce said. “She would have been four by the time The Undying hit Gotham and Batman came back. She’d be twenty-one now. Your father has been playing a long game.”

“Time,” Talia said, “is the one thing the great Ra’s al Ghul cannot seem to get rid of. It has been sixteen years since I have spoken to my father, but even when I was in his good graces, I was not privy to most of the information around Astrid’s training. If we were to enter the realm of theory yet again, then I must theorize that with me out of the picture, and no sure way for an heir, he would have liquidated that four-year-old Astrid and dropped her into a shallow grave.”

“What do you think stopped him?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Talia asked. “He heard that the deadly and talented Cassandra Cain had made herself known after years in the wilderness, and affixed herself to the side of The Batman. Thus, he found another way to secure the al Ghul heir. So he kept training Astrid, and he waited. Only now, it was _Cassandra’s _separation from Gotham City that he needed to secure, not yours. Which means, as far as danger goes, Cassandra doesn’t seem to be in much of it. She’s too valuable. _You, _on the other hand… I do not think Astrid Arkham likes you at all.”

Talia stepped toward Bruce, arms folded, her green eyes sizing him up.

“The Arkham Knight,” she said, “was built from the ground up to murder the children that you have been using as human shields these past thirty years.”

She held up the index finger on her right hand, and the corner of her mouth listed off in a sneer.

_“One down…”_

* * *

**ARKHAM ASYLUM**

Astrid Arkham had many interview tapes such as these. Her mother, the late Doctor Ingrid Karlsson, ministering to the needs of Gotham City’s so-called Rogues.

She always felt a great pride in this. In seeing the woman from whom she sprang forth attempting bring light to lost causes. Helping those in need.

And her heart always broke when she saw the state that some of these Rogues had been in.

Black eyes. Casts. Hastily stitched cuts. Lumpy and swollen noses. Missing teeth. It seemed that to gain entry into this River Styx, the ferryman took from them his toll in blood and pain.

_Batman…_

The false idol. The symbol without whom Gotham City itself seemed content to wither and die. Which made Gotham City beyond salvation, and deserving of its eventual fate at the hands of the great Ra’s al Ghul.

And she ended these looks into the minds of Gotham’s former supposed monsters the same way she always did.

She brought up the menu on the phone, and brought up another tape.

This was not an interview. This was surveillance footage of a rec room within the walls of this very asylum.

From the vantage above, The Joker, Clayface, Two-Face, and Scarecrow were surrounding a very pregnant Doctor Ingrid Karlsson, and helping her bring Astrid Arkham into the world that Ra’s al Ghul had intended her to help shape. 

They all looked at something… or some _one… _that was out of frame.

Before a small black object, easily revealed to be a Batarang upon further analysis, whipped into the frame and ended the life of Doctor Ingrid Karlsson.

The woman who had only tried to help.

Everyone in this footage was dead now. The Joker had been murdered by an insane lover. Jonathan Crane had been shot and buried in a construction site by an unknown assailant. Harvey Dent and Basil Karlo had been set on fire from within by the green flame of The Undying.

And… of course… Batman murdered Astrid Arkham’s mother. 

Bootfalls from the tile floor outside the morgue. Astrid turned off the surveillance tape, got off of the slab, and stood at attention.

Ra’s al Ghul entered. Black trousers and a white shirt. He seemed to have stowed his jacket and his cloak in his quarters elsewhere in Arkham Asylum.

“Greetings, child.”

“How was Brazil?” Astrid asked. Her voice was high. Almost breathy. An observer both inattentive and deeply imaginative would suggest that an asthmatic thirteen-year-old girl was using the body of this apparent female bodybuilder as a ventriloquist’s dummy.

“The fruits of my labor should be in Gotham City within forty-eight hours,” Ra’s said. “And how fares _your _mission? Spreading discord and chaos among Bruce Wayne’s pathetic family unit?”

Astrid’s pale blue eyes met those of The Demon, and she smiled.

“Something… _interesting… _has come up.”

“Do tell,” said Ra’s.

“On the night that I… _disassembled… _Mother Panic, I received a transmission from an unknown party. A _‘Mystery Caller.’”_

Ra’s’ eyes narrowed. “What did they ask of you?”

“They asked nothing of me,” Astrid said. “They volunteered information. The whereabouts of Dick Grayson for the following day, and the make and model of his vehicle. It was from this information that I was able to locate him… subdue him… and destroy him.”

“And who might this Mystery Caller be, in your estimation?”

“Someone on the inside,” Astrid said.

Ra’s al Ghul raised his eyes. Astrid smiled.

“Bruce Wayne has a mole problem,” Astrid said.

“Has it occurred to you that this may be a trap?”

“It isn’t.”

“How can you be sure?”

“It _can’t _be,” Astrid said. “Dick Grayson is _dead. _ By _my _hand. None of those people would have thought that _any _trap would have been worth the death of one of their own. They will not make sacrifices like that. Not unless someone turned coat.”

She saw a fire light in Ra’s al Ghul’s green eyes. He was seeing sense. Astrid Arkham smiled even wider.

“And,” she said, “that Mystery Caller gave me the information for today’s op.”

Ra’s nodded. “Fascinating.”

Astrid stood up straighter, and felt pride well within her.

“It seems that someone in Bruce Wayne’s family hates him almost as much as I do.”


	21. The Great Gotham Team-Up, Part Three

**Chapter 21: The Great Gotham Team-Up, Part Three**

**THE MAINLAND GOTHAM CITY SEWER SYSTEM - TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO**

On this very evening, as Ra’s al Ghul and Talia al Ghul paid up big to get eight-day-old Astrid Arkham out of foster care (in a manner of speaking), an altogether different drama played out beneath the ground between another purloined child, and another beautiful young woman of dubious moral fiber.

In an outflow room, stinking of raw sewage, Catwoman sat at a small table, nursing a glass of red wine. Across from her, sitting tied to an office chair with a bungee cord (that Selina Kyle had had lying around her apartment for reasons even she did not recollect), was an unconscious Robin. And he too had a wine glass in front of him, though his was empty.

And Robin was just starting to come around.

His blue eyes fluttered beneath his domino mask. His mouth turned into a frown as he had apparently caught a whiff of the room. His eyes opened, and settled on Catwoman, before they smoldered in anger.

“Good morning,” Catwoman said, and took a sip of her wine.

Robin didn’t say anything.

“Don't worry,” Catwoman said. “I have something for you to drink, too.”

She reached down into the grocery bag at her feet, and pulled out the bottle of wine, before setting it on the table.

Then she reached back into the bag, and pulled out a Capri Sun juice pouch. It was the Fruit Punch flavor, and had ad art of two kids playing volleyball on the front.

Catwoman used the claws on her right hand to snip a corner off of the juice box, whereupon she expelled the radioactive-looking red liquid contents into the wine glass before Robin.

That he was tied down and couldn’t use his arms was of no concern to Catwoman. She had an inkling that it would be amusing, and even if it would be so to no one else but she, such temptations were indulged.

_“Ohhhhh, fuuuuuuck youuuuuuuu,”_ Robin said.

Catwoman smiled. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“My mom’s dead.”

“Yeah?” Catwoman asked. “Mine too. We should start a club.”

Robin intensified his glare. “You think this is the first time I’ve been kidnapped?’

“No,” Catwoman said. “You’re Robin. You’re in triple digits by now.”

She kicked up her feet on the table, right next to the glass of wine. “So what’s he like?”

“Batman?”

“No,” Catwoman said, lacquering her voice in sarcasm. “William Henry Harrison.”

“Well, he was prone to disease. Died of pneumonia thirty-one days into his term. Most presidential historians don’t even count him.”

_“What? _ Not _actual _William Hen-- _Yes! Batman!”_

“A serious pain in the ass,” Robin said. “Now when I say that, I mean he is a pain in the ass who is serious. Not an _intensified _pain in the ass. _Although...”_

“So he walks the walk,” Catwoman said. “He really is no fun at all, huh?”

“He has his moments.”

“Such as?”

“Ask him yourself,” Robin said. “He’s right behind you.”

Catwoman rolled her eyes. “You really expect me to fall for that?”

**“But I ** **_am_ ** **right behind you.”**

Instinctively, Catwoman jumped up and turned around, knocking over both the chair in which she sat, and the glass of wine from which she had been sipping. It spilled its contents on to the table, but did not fall off and break.

There was Batman, standing a few feet away. Big as life, and twice as… Selina Kyle didn’t have a word to finish the sentence.

“Well,” Robin said from behind her, “he’s a _little _fun.”

“So,” Catwoman said, ignoring him, “you decided to show.”

Through clenched teeth, Batman asked _“Where… is… the Venom?”_

“This the first time you’ve ever made a deal?” Catwoman asked. “See, I give you what you want, if you give me what I want.”

“What _do _you want?” Batman asked.

“Hmmm,” Catwoman said, tapping her chin. “Y’know… I haven’t quite made up my mind yet. There’s money, but that’s boring. If Bruce Wayne has so much of it, it can’t be very special.”

Batman’s eyes narrowed. That was the biggest response she’d gotten so far, and she had no earthly idea why.

“I know,” Catwoman said with a grin. “The Batmobile. I want the Batmobile.”

Batman lightly shifted his head to the side so he could look at her out of the corner of his blue eyes. “What do you want the Batmobile for?”

“To _drive,” _Catwoman said. “Clearly you’re not having fun with it. You’re not having fun with _anything.”_

Batman simply blinked, and said “No.”

“What? No negotiations?”

“No.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I still have the Boy Wonder all tied up.”

“Two things,” Batman said. “One. We both know you’re not going to do anything to Robin. You’ve never killed anyone.”

“That you know of.”

“And two,” Batman said. “I don’t need you to free Robin. Robin can free himself.”

Catwoman opened her mouth for a quip… but before she did, she felt the bungee cords with which she had bound Robin lightly drape around her neck.

Then she watched the little shit walk around her, stand next to Batman, and fold his arms.

“Now,” Robin said. “One more time. Where… is… the Venom.”

Catwoman sneered. She leaned back against the table. Without taking her eyes off of either of them, she grabbed the wine bottle and threw it a few yards to her right. It landed in the water of a moisture outflow basin that was about twenty feet wide and God knows how many feet deep.

“It’s in there,” Catwoman said. “Under the water.”

Batman looked from her, to the outflow basin, and back ag--

**FWOOM!**

A rush of water.

A loud roar.

A flurry of green scales.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Catwoman said. “Did you ask about the _Venom? _ I thought you said _‘Killer Croc.’ _ Yeah, that’s my bad.”

All eight feet of Killer Croc stepped out of the basin. She could feel his footsteps reverberate in the very brick upon which she stood.

Batman spared a moment of shock to glare at her.

And she just smiled back. “You’re not the only one who can get bigger people to fight their battles for them, Sailor.”

Batman and Robin, in tandem, fired their grapnel guns at the exit pipe, trying to lure Killer Croc out to friendlier climes. Killer Croc roared yet again, and then followed them out.

Which left Catwoman alone.

She had told Killer Croc that he could slap Batman and Robin around however much he wanted, but his payment hinged on them still being alive when he was done.

Catwoman picked up the open bottle of wine, raised it to her lips, and--

**CRASH!**

The lower half of the bottle exploded in her hand. She was covered in small shards of glass and cheap Cabernet Sauvignon.

As Catwoman’s shock subsided, she saw the offending article that had caused the small explosion stuck there in the table.

A Batarang.

Someone who sounded female cleared their throat, and Catwoman turned toward the sound.

There stood a tall woman, almost six feet, in black plate armor. Her utility belt, the Bat insignia, and the lining of her cape were yellow. And her long hair was red.

“Howdy,” Batgirl said.

Catwoman had often fantasized about how a fight between herself and the skilled, infuriating, _enticing _Batman would go. Selina Kyle did not like her odds.

But _Batgirl?_

Yeah, she’d do in a pinch.

* * *

Batman and Robin left the outflow room, and ran down the narrow passageway, before hanging a right into a brick corridor.

Killer Croc decided to cut them off… by smashing through the brick wall to their left.

Croc wiped stray bits of brick off of his scaly shoulder, before snarling and advancing on them.

“Fall back,” Batman said. _ “Fall back!”_

Robin ran back the way he came. Batman stood his ground, got a couple of explosive charges out of his utility belt, and threw them at the ground. He brought his cape up to protect himself just as they went off.

**BOOM!**

The corridor collapsed in a hail of red brick. Batman brought his cape down and had just enough time to catch his breath, before of thick, scaly hand punched through the brick pile.

Killer Croc’s hand was so fast and so strong that his claws left scratch marks on the chest of Batman’s armor.

The wall of bricks around Killer Croc’s powerful, flailing arm began to shift and loosen… before he heard muffled thumps, and a roar from the other side.

It seemed that Robin had cut back around and had thrown some of the more combustive and festive contents of his utility belt at Croc.

Killer Croc extracted his arm from the loose pile of bricks, and Batman could see light from the hole that Croc had made.

Taking Robin’s cue, Batman went out the same way he came in. Once he had reached the passageway, he saw Robin using his grapnel gun on the walls and ceiling to stay out of Killer Croc’s reach, zipping up and over to his pursuer’s fury.

_“Come and catch me, dipshit!” _Robin yelled before letting the grapnel line hoist him up in the air. Killer Croc’s meaty arms wound up tackling empty space before he lost control, and launched himself face first into the small stream of green muck at the center of the passage way.

Croc got to his feet and growled. Batman ran to his front, and stared him down. As Croc got to his feet, Batman unleashed a pair of pellets that he had retrieved from his utility belt.

He threw them at Croc’s feet, and they ignited.

Plumes of silver foam erupted on the concrete, encasing Killer Croc's wide reptilian feet.

That adhesive had been tested by Lucius in the WayneTech labs. Batman had been told that they could stop a monster truck from moving, but he didn’t know whether or not Lucius had actually brought a monster truck into the lab in order to physically test it.

Imagine Batman’s shock as Killer Croc groaned and, after seemingly minimal struggle, brought his feet out of the silver adhesive foam.

So…. Killer Croc was stronger than a monster truck now.

Killer Croc set his yellow eyes on Batman and snorted a rip of the air around him… before his eyes went as wide as saucers.

Croc caught _something’s _scent.

He wildly and blindly brought his right arm around… and it found Robin, who had been trying to sneak up behind him.

Robin flew into the wall of the passageway so hard that his head rocked back, colliding with the brick. He fell to the floor in a heap.

Batman saw this and _roared. _ He dug two Batarangs out of his belt and drove them both into either side of Killer Croc’s neck…

...only for the metal of the Batarangs to bend and warp on contact.

So not only had Croc’s strength increased since the last time Batman had seen him, but his skin had gotten exponentially tougher.

Killer Croc turned and looked down and Batman, his thin lips fixing around his razor sharp teeth in a queasy and terrifying approximation of a smile.

Then he drove his head dead center into the front of Batman’s cowl.

Batman dropped to a knee, and his vision went gray. 

* * *

Batgirl was a pugnacious little shit, Catwoman would give her that. 

She hadn’t had time to bring her hand down to her belt to get her whip before Batgirl fired her grapnel gun.

The hook went around an overhanging pipe, and in Batgirl swooped like Indiana Fucking Jones, delivering one of those tacky yellow boots of hers right to Catwoman’s mush.

Catwoman spun from the impact, but she didn’t fall. The back of her tongue caught traces of blood in her mouth.

She spat, and tried to stare the advancing Batgirl down.

No quips from our ginger friend. All steely green eyes and confident stance.

This told Catwoman that Batgirl was, similar to her boss, no Goddamned fun at all.

This also told her that Batgirl treated every fight like a test she had to cram for. She had contingencies on top of contingencies, just like the patience-thinning man for whom she toadied.

Which meant that Batgirl would not react well to surprises.

She was coming in for a right.

Catwoman wasn’t even going to _try _to block it. Batgirl was wearing plate armor. It slowed her down, but it also added momentum to whatever she landed. Speed was the order for the evening. She was wearing a thin, skintight Catsuit, she might as well take advantage of how light it was.

Catwoman flowed around the right cross that Batgirl threw, before she came up with a left elbow of her own that she counted on Batgirl dodging.

_Good. Let her think I’m slower than I actually am. Let me actually _be _fast enough to stay safe._

The claws came out for a slow flurry that she hoped to God Batgirl would dodge.

_If I disfigure you, Bats will never let me hear the end of it._

Dodge it, she did. Batgirl put her back into a lunge kick that Catwoman sidestepped.

Then… Catwoman got the urge to gamble.

She let off a roundhouse kick with her right leg…

...and Batgirl caught her foot.

Catwoman was hoping that Batgirl, with her sudden run of good fortune, would revert to self-defense 101.

And she was not disappointed.

Batgirl yanked Catwoman’s foot toward her, and knelt.

Ideally, what Batgirl just did would have done was brought the offending attacker down into a split. Most people would thereafter be rendered a shrieking, blubbering mess at having their crotch hit the floor as the midpoint in the straight line between their two ankles.

But this was Catwoman, and she could do a split in her sleep… And one memorable time with an ex-boyfriend, she actually _had._

With Catwoman in the split, and Batgirl kneeling down in front of her, they were face to face.

And Catwoman could see the confusion play out on Batgirl’s face beneath her cowl. _Where is the screaming and the swearing? That happened every other time I did this._

Catwoman smiled. “Nice try, Batginger.”

Then she hit Batgirl in the face with a right hook that was so devastating that Catwoman saw the poor girl’s eyes roll back in her head.

* * *

Killer Croc’s maw opened impossibly wide, and descended on Batman’s head.

Batman was spared decapitation by a shower of concussive pellets that detonated around Croc’s skull.

From behind them, Robin called out. _“You want me to stay down, you gotta put more work in, you shitheel!”_

Croc growled. “How do you work with that kid?”

“Carefully,” Batman said, before he took off his utility belt, and used it as a melee weapon. He brought it up under Killer Croc’s chin with all his might, and staggered him enough for Batman to dive between his legs and roll through to the other side.

Batman yelled. _ “Robin! Sigma!”_

Robin nodded. “You get him to hit the high note. I’ll go up top.”

Batman nodded back. He turned back around… only to walk into a kick to the chest from Croc. He flew into the brick wall behind him, and Batman had to squint from the fine mist of red dust that arose upon impact.

But he still had his utility belt in his hand.

He moved in. Killer Croc swiped at him with his colossal right arm, but Batman ducked it. And while he was down there, he wrapped his utility belt around Killer Croc’s ankles, and fastened the buckle.

“What the…”

Batman didn’t think that his utility belt would fare any better than the silver monster truck foam… but if Croc destroyed the belt, then every gadget inside would go off. And that, needless to say, would be interesting for all parties involved.

As Batman looked up at the clearly confused Croc, he detached one of the three spikes from the underside of his left gauntlet.

Killer Croc’s skin was now tough enough to destroy Batarangs… but the thinnest skin on the human body was the eyelid.

He was going to have to be delicate about this. A miniscule fraction of an inch off in either direction, and he’d risk destroying Killer Croc’s eyeball. And unlike his other body parts, Batman wasn’t entirely sure Killer Croc’s eye would grow back.

Batman secured the spike between the index and middle fingers of his right hand, and up came the uppercut.

_Bullseye!_

The spike lodged in the upper part of Killer Croc’s right eye socket, leaving the yellow eyeball itself undamaged, but the skin above it spewing blood.

Killer Croc reared back and roared…

...right underneath Robin, who was hanging from the ceiling by his grapnel gun. In his right hand was a palm full of knockout pellets.

Which he dropped right into Killer Croc’s open mouth.

Only one or two ricocheted off of Croc’s lips and teeth. Down his gullet the rest of them went.

Croc swallowed, coughed, and looked around him in confusion.

Then he belched. Out of his mouth came a thick gray cloud of noxious knockout gas.

Killer Croc staggered. _ “You… pieces o’... shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.”_

Croc fell forward, and Batman had to leap out of the way to avoid the impact.

**SPLAT!**

Killer Croc landed face first on the concrete floor, the spike from Batman’s gauntlet sticking up in the air.

Batman yanked it out as Robin dropped to the floor.

“You alright?” Robin asked.

Batman grimly nodded, and said “I’ll live.”

* * *

Any victory that Catwoman was going to extract from Batgirl was going to be a hollow one. This she knew.

It was abundantly clear to Catwoman that Batgirl was essentially trained to be a shock trooper, whose MO was to hit people once and drop them, before she moved onto the next one.

Long fights did not favor this Batgirl. Catwoman knew that Batgirl did not have the conditioning for extended fights, and that plate amor she was wearing was only slowing her down and making her tired.

Catwoman, on the other hand, was freed from luring Batgirl into feints with her ostentatious show of logy agility. That being the case, she was actually _speeding up _as the fight progressed.

Batgirl raised her right yellow gauntlet in front of her face, and pressed a button, letting the three spikes eject wildly.

All Catwoman had to do was duck.

She went down low to sweep Batgirl’s leg. It didn’t knock her down, but it did stagger her.

Catwoman sprang upward, bringing her right elbow into Batgirl’s jaw. Blood flew from her mouth as she whirled with the momentum.

Or she tried to, anyway. Mid-whirl, Catwoman grabbed one of the horns sticking up from her cowl with one hand, and a handful of cape with the other.

Catwoman spiked Batgirl’s head into the concrete floor like a football.

A groan escaped Batgirl’s bloody lips as Catwoman brought her right leg up for a stomp.

Batgirl log-rolled out of the way in the nick of time.

The virtual eternity that Batgirl took getting to her feet meant that Catwoman had more than enough time to relieve her bullwhip from her waist.

Batgirl’s eyes went wide when she saw Catwoman rear back.

**CRACK!**

The force of the whip crack was so strong that a sliver of yellow lacquer came off the gauntlet that Batgirl raised to defend herself.

Catwoman brought the whip back, waved it in a circle over her head to build momentum, and…

**CRACK!**

The business end of the bullwhip wrapped around Batgirl’s left gauntlet, and she smiled with pink teeth at Catwoman, convinced that she had her right where she wanted her.

Which was what Catwoman _wanted _Batgirl to think.

Muscle plus plate armor meant that Batgirl was heavy. Heaviness ment leverage. This also meant that Catwoman could use the bullwhip tight around Batgirl’s arm to slingshot herself toward her.

And that is precisely what Catwoman did.

She saw Batgirl’s green eyes enlarge in shock as she rocketed toward her. It might have been her imagination, but Catwoman swore that she distinctly heard and _“Oh, sh--”_

**THWACK!**

Batgirl’s head rocked back as the loose whip fell to the floor. More blood fell down her lips and chin. She collected herself, threw a slow right that Catwoman just had to lean back to dodge, and--

**THWACK!**

Another right across Batgirl’s jaw. Catwoman heard an undignified _“GACK!” _escape her mouth, before came in with a lunge kick that barely got off the ground.

It was time to finish this.

After sidestepping the lunge, Catwoman brought her left foot all the way up until it rested on the slouching Batgirl’s right shoulder. She saw the confusion in Batgirl’s eyes.

Then, Catwoman pulled in with her left leg while moving forward with her right.

The result was a flip kick with all of the power in Catwoman’s body that…

**WHAM!**

...caught Batgirl under the jaw so hard that she was lifted off of her feet.

Catwoman landed on her hands and knees after the resulting backflip, with adrenaline coursing through her body.

Batgirl landed on her back, out cold.

Catwoman rose to her feet, and raised her hands in the air.

_“Winner! _ And still _champi _\-- **UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH!”**

* * *

Catwoman rose to her feet, and raised her hands in the air.

Batman fired the shock dart from his gauntlet.

_“Winner! _ And still _champi _\-- **UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH!”**

The dart hit Catwoman in the small of her back, and veins of blue electricity wrapped around her body. She jittered in place for a moment, before keeling over onto her left side.

Batman walked toward her prone body, grabbed her by the wrist, and dragged her over to the metal railing around the outflow basin that Killer Croc had mangled after he had emerged from it. He got a pair of cuffs out of his utility belt, and handcuffed Catwoman to the railing by her left hand.

From behind him. “Here, let me help you up.”

Robin was helping Batgirl to her feet. She shook her head and spat some blood on the concrete, before she met Batman’s gaze.

It wasn’t that he was unable to keep the disappointment at Batgirl’s failure out of his face. It was that he wasn’t entirely convinced he _wanted _to.

Batgirl lowered her eyes to the floor, and sheepishly put her hands behind her back.

“Robin,” Batman said. “Do you still have the signal for the tracker underneath the Venom truck?

“Sure do,” said Robin.

“The two of you secure it,” Batman said.

As his two sidekicks left the room, he turned to face the cuffed Catwoman, who was just now coming to.

“You,” Batman said, gravel in his voice.

Catwoman shook her head, and asked “Me what?”

He thought for a moment about crouching down to get to her level, but she didn’t deserve it. Not tonight. So he remained standing.

“You had no intention of harming Robin,” Batman said. “And you knew I wasn’t going to agree to any demand you made.”

“You don’t know that, Sailor.” The application of the shit-eating grin was instantaneous.

Batman closed his eyes and sighed, before opening them again.

“Catwoman,” Batman said, “Selina… You did this for attention.”

That’s when the grin went away. Beneath that Catwoman cowl, Selina Kyle’s face was a fright mask of anger.

“Why?” Batman asked. “What’s changed since the last time I saw you?”

Catwoman sneered, rolled her eyes, and flipped him off.

“Am I really a bridge you want to burn?” Batman asked. “I put up with a lot from you, but if you turn your back, you’re in the cold. And you’ll stay that way.”

Catwoman spat at his feet, and looked up at him with defiance.

Footsteps behind him. “Batman?”

Robin and Batgirl had returned. He walked up to them.

“Did you secure the truck?” Batman asked.

Robin looked at Batgirl sheepishly, before he held out a jagged piece of machinery with loose, severed wires and a blinking light.

“The signal tracker,” Batman said.

“And the rest of the truck is MIA,” Batgirl said. “It, and the Venom it’s carrying, could be anywhere underground.”

“We can just ask Catwoman where it is, right?” Robin asked.

Batman closed his eyes, and glowered behind his mask. “By the time I turn around, Catwoman will have picked the lock on her cuffs and escaped.”

Robin snorted, as he walked around him.

“Oh, come _on,”_ he said. “Catwoman isn’t _that_ g… _Aw,_ _shit!”_

Batman turned around.

The Batcuffs were just hanging off of the mangled railing. She had even picked up her discarded whip before she vanished.

She really was that good.

He turned back to his recently kidnapped protege and his recently battered associate.

“We failed,” Batman said, glaring at both of them. Then he walked between them, bumping into both of their shoulders as he advanced into the interior of the sewers.

“Don’t worry,” he could hear Batgirl telling Robin. “We’ll get ‘em next time.”

* * *

The record must state that they did not, in fact, get ‘em next time.

A mere eleven days after The Great Gotham Team-Up, Barbara Gordon would be in a wheelchair. Three months after that, Jason Todd would be dead.

And while both conditions (though the unwanted intervention of magic in the former and the whims of an insane Greek Goddess in the latter) would only be temporary, it did cast one hell of a pall on their relationship going forward.

* * *

**SELINA KYLE’S HARLOW STREET APARTMENT - TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO**

Selina leaned against the sill of the open window, a cheap beer in one hand and her other hand scratching the head of her one-year-old black cat Isis.

She had showered the sewer stench off of her, and got into an oversized t-shirt over a pair of pink undies, and got a bottle of Michelob out of the ancient and noisy Kennmore fridge that came with the apartment.

So she stared at the Gotham skyline, just… thinking.

_You did this for attention._

She was at that breezy point she always spotted, the stage of admission before playing it cool, so Selina grunted and asked herself if she really was that obvious.

Was it obvious to Batman that her heart may or may not have boiled in her stomach the instant she heard that Bane had broken him, possibly permanently?

Was it obvious how much she missed him for the month he was away?

Was it obvious that when she learned he’d slept with Talia al Ghul, that she was nowhere near as cool with it as she attempted to convince herself she was?

Selina grunted and took a pull off of her beer. She swept away every other thought, save for that one hopeless, silly, foolish, sentimental, bullshit thought that she kidnapped a child and stole a truck full of green goo in a reckless and foolhardy attempt to talk to the boy she liked.

_Oh, you are _ **_so_ ** _getting repressed later…_

And it would be. Selina Kyle would remain aloof. Catwoman would remain pragmatic. God would still be out of town, and all would be fucked up with the world. The status quo was a beautiful thing.

The door to her apartment opened. Her contact had arrived.

Pamela Swigeld was the one and only sidekick that Catwoman had ever had. She went by the codename _“Mouse,” _and she didn’t last long before Selina decided she worked best as a solo act.

But Pamela still owed Selina one favor, and tonight was the night she called it in. While Catwoman tussled with Batgirl, and while Batman and Robin went to war with Killer Croc, it was Pamela’s job to take the truck and hide it elsewhere in the sewers after she had removed the signal tracker. That way, even if those caped schmucks took her to jail and she was put to the question by the GCPD, she’d honestly have no idea where it was.

Yeah, she did this just to see Batman, but that was no reason she couldn’t bring in some black market bucks at the same time, right?

Selina turned and looked at Pamela. “So where’d you stash the Venom truck?”

Pamela Swigeld was an almost intimidatingly pretty black woman in her mid-twenties with short straightened hair and delicate brown eyes that did not handle the emotion of embarrassment well.

Selina knew this because Pamela looked deeply embarrassed at present.

“Well,” Pamela said, “see, here’s the thing…”

Selina closed her eyes, rolled them beneath her lids, and groaned “Ohhhhhh, Christ.”

“I ripped out the tracker,” Pamela said, “and drove the truck elsewhere in the sewer like you said, so you could pick it up later. But, um… The sewers are identical, y’know that? I was… I was _lost _down there after I stashed the truck, and I swear to Jesus an army of cockroaches chased me for a whole block. I tried _forever _to find a manhole cover, and by the time I came up on Seeley Street, I had no idea how I got there. So…”

Selina stared daggers at Pamela.

“So what you’re telling me… is that you did such a good job hiding a truck full of millions of dollars worth of illegal, experimental steroids… that even _you _don’t know where it is?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

The headache was instantaneous. She put her beer down on the window sill, and massaged her temples.

She was supposed to pay Killer Croc a hundred grand for that show he put on with Batman and Robin tonight. She was supposed to double it if he got pinched, which he had. And now she was going to have to pay it out of pocket. Yeah, she had access to the cash, but _Jesus, _what a fucking _nightmare._

_This is why I don’t have a sidekick anymore..._

Selina put her hands at her sides, and decided that now was the time that she could look at her old associate without leaping across the room and beating on her until she stopped twitching.

“Thanks for the effort,” Selina said through clenched teeth. “But this hasn’t been the best night for me, and I would very much like to be alone right now.”

Pamela nodded…

“Oh.”

...before she reached into the pocket of her overcoat and pulled out a small, tied-off baggie filled with green plant matter.

“I scored some weed, though,” Pamela said. “Y’know, as a _‘Sorry I Fucked Up’ _present.”

Selina’s eyes went down to the baggie of weed, before they went back up to meet Pamela’s.

_Eh, screw it…_

Selina felt the warmth seep into her eyes. She smiled sweetly. She held her hand out to her.

“What kind of person would I be if I turned away _the best friend I ever had?”_


	22. The House on Archer Avenue

**Chapter 22: The House on Archer Avenue**

**WAYNE MANOR - NOW**

Wayne Manor was the most secure and well-protected place in the Gotham City area.

And it was the place where all of the members of the original Batman network had to go to ground.

Standing atop the staircase that overlooked the main foyer, Tim Drake and Violet Paige looked down, and acted as Greek Chorus.

“So who’s on the lookout at your folks’ place?” Violet asked. “Them and your daughter?”

“Pantha and Naomi McDuffie,” Tim said.

“Anyone doing protection duty at Bea’s place in Bludhaven?”

“Argent and Arsenal. Roy volunteered.”

“And is there anyone at The Pike?” Violet asked. “To look after mom and Otis?”

“Solstice and Mouse,” Tim said. “He’s from that team The Movement. He has, uh… _Rodent-kinesis _or whatever. I figure he and Otis would have things to talk about.”

“Please tell me someone’s on the lookout at Duke’s place. I mean, he’d get all pissy if he found out someone was, but still.”

Tim nodded. “Huntress--that’s Charlie Gage-Radcliffe, the new one, not Helena Bertinelli--and Star-Blossom.”

Violet blinked. _ “Star-Blossom?”_

“Peony McGill seems like a lightweight,” Tim said, “but she is a straight-up _game-breaker _if you think about her long enough.”

Violet sniffed, and looked back down at the main floor. “Why’s Barbara look upset?”

Tim looked down along with her. Barbara Gordon was walking from a room on one end of the foyer to another. And she was all scowls.

“She wanted to stay in the Clock Tower. It fell to me to convince her otherwise.”

“How’d you do that?”

“It wasn’t hard,” Tim said. “She lives in the _Clock Tower. _ It’s a big rectangle with giant clock faces on all four sides. She may as well try to hide out in Vinny’s House of Bullseyes, for all the good it would do her. We _know _the Arkham Knight has missile launchers. It’s why _you’re _here, after all.”

“And that’s why Barbara’s pissed?”

Tim sighed. “Barbara Gordon is an extremely intelligent individual.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Which is why she _deeply _hates it when you point out the obvious to her.”

“And that’s your job, right?”

“It is today.”

“You just love pissing people off, don’t you?”

“I don’t try to,” Tim said. “It just happens sometimes.”

“Okay,” said Violet. “So when it happens to someone you don’t like, you don’t lean into it?”

“Well… I’m not gonna say _that.”_

Violet smiled. At Tim. It felt weird.

“Hey, now,” Violet said, looking back down to the floor. “You gonna have a deal with turtling up in a country mansion with your ex-wife?”

Tim followed Violet’s gaze. Harper had just come in through the front door, and she was checking her phone.

He shrugged, and said “No.”

Violet looked at him like he was one of the more creative third grade Science Fair projects she’d ever seen. This was also weird.

“So you walk around pissing people off?”

“That is the consensus view.”

“But nothing pisses _you _off?”

“That also seems to be the consensus view.”

“Huh,” Violet said. “Challenging.”

Tim squinted at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nevermind,” said Violet, looking below her again. “Where did _she _come from?”

Cassandra Wayne strolled in in a pair of blue jeans and her black leather jacket.

“Hmm,” Tim said. “She must have come in the Batmobile. I don’t see Jason here yet.”

_“What… _the _fuck… _happened to her _face?”_

Tim had to squint to see it. Cass’ face was bruised and lumpy.

“She’s Black Bat,” Tim said. “Fights happen.”

“Who _fought _her, though?” Violet asked. “Jesus H. Christ? Because that’s the only person who could land just _one _shot on Cass, let alone enough to do _that.”_

Tim just shrugged.

From one of the side rooms, Aaliyah Ramsey and Carrie Kelley emerged. They caught up with Cass, and the three started talking, though about what, Tim could not say.

“And here come the grandkids,” Violet said.

“That’s… certainly a name for them.”

“I called them that in front of Selina last night.”

“Didn’t take it well, did she?’

“No, she did not.”

Tim had a grin in him for at least that.

And then, as if summoned, Selina herself came in through Wayne Manor’s front door. And someone was with her.

“It’s Stephanie,” Tim said.

Cassandra broke from Aaliyah and Carrie to walk up to Selina and Steph.

Tim squinted.

Stephanie Brown’s face was a mess as well.

Which meant…

“Oh,” Tim said. _“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh.”_

He looked at Violet. The grimace on her face was all the evidence Tim needed that she had done the math.

And, apparently, so had Selina. For she looked from Stephanie’s messed-up face, to Cassandra’s, and back to Stephanie’s, before crying out:

_“Jesus Christ, girl, ALREADY?”_

* * *

Bruce Wayne stood at the window of his bedroom, and looked down at the fog-shrouded rear grounds of the manor below.

He heard the door to his bedroom open.

It was his daughter.

Cassandra was going to ask him how he was. How he was holding up. If there was anything she could do for him.

And Bruce could not abide this.

So he cut her off, and told her the information he had learned. About Astrid Arkham, her story, her mission… and her rage.

Cassandra was quiet for a while.

“You know,” she said, “you never once offered to suit up. Get back underneath the cowl. Be Batman again. For one night only, anyway.”

Bruce desperately wanted to. He wanted to feel the power and the righteousness course through him. To wrap has hands around the throat of Ra’s al Ghul, the man who had Dick Grayson killed, the man who had corrupted Astrid Arkham, and squeeze until he passed out.

And yet…

“No,” Bruce said. “I wouldn’t dare.”

Cassandra’s bruised face was a deadpan. He’d have to ask what happened to her.

“This is the life you chose,” Bruce said. “This is the job you asked for, and this is the job I gave you. This is your city. And you must protect it. You will not fail.”

“You don’t know that,” Cassandra said.

“Yes, I do,” said Bruce.

“Batman’s never wrong, huh?”

“I’m not Batman anymore,” Bruce said, and for some reason, this statement felt the closest it had ever been to truth. “I’m just your dad. You have come far from the girl I met in that warehouse sixteen years ago. Impossibly far. And as much as I’d like to take credit, however minor, for the woman you have become, it would be a lie. _You _got you this far. Not me, not Barbara, not anyone else. And the fact is, I downright pity Ra’s al Ghul and Astrid Arkham. They don’t know you like I do… And they don’t fear you like they should.”

Cassandra was still deadpan, but she walked up to him, and wrapped her arms around him. And he returned the gesture.

Her face buried in his chest, Bruce could hear Cassandra say something.

“I can’t tell you how much I needed to hear that today.”

* * *

Jason Todd arrived in the Bentley a half an hour after everyone else.

He walked into a Wayne Manor that was both comfortable and alien. The throng of people that had been there for Dick Grayson’s wake had acted as a buffer between his memory and the pristine new experience, and now that they were gone, the interior of the place swung into high-def. Cracks and scratches were visible.

And he knew that there were precious damn few people in this house that he’d like to talk to.

Yeah, there was Cass, but judging from the sounds of loud and angry, fighting and even louder, angrier sex from a couple of floors above his apartment last night, she was more preoccupied with someone else at present.

So he walked around until he found someone he could talk to.

He haunted the rear halls of the ground floor, ducking out of the way whenever Harper or Selilna walked past, and found the kitchen.

Jason figured he’d help himself to a snack. He died in the name of the owner of this house, the least he could do was cough up an apple or something.

What he found, sitting at the large island in the middle of the room, was Cullen Row. He was checking his phone.

Cullen looked up at Jason, standing in the doorway.

“Hey,” he said.

“Yo,” said Jason in return.

“Anything I can help you with?”

Jason folded his arms, leaned against the door frame, and said:

“I’m bored. Entertain me.”

* * *

There was, burrowed away in the labyrinthine East Wing of Wayne Manor, a video arcade. It had been erected in Bruce's early days as Batman, as a place of leisure for his then-recent ward Dick Grayson.

Sadly, the downfall of arcade games (as well as American arcades in general) and the fact that there hadn’t been any kids in Wayne Manor for a good long while meant that the games hadn’t been updated.

But Aaliyah Ramsey and Carrie Kelley were not above playing the _Addams Family _pinball machine.

Aaliyah kept her eye on the ball as Carrie spoke.

“I don’t get a lot of girls my age who actually know what the hell I’m talking about.”

“You don’t?” Aaliyah asked.

“Nah,” Carrie said. “Just the girls at school, but it’s not like I can tell them I’m Robin. And anyone in the game who’s my age is somewhere else. Used to be, Gotham was crawling with teenage superheroes. Guess I missed the window.”

“I have a question.”

“Okay,” said Carrie.

Aaliyah paused as the little silver ball came down to her right bumper. She lined it up and launched it before she continued.

“It’s a weird question.”

“Then _double _okay.”

“Are, uh… Are there any straight women in Gotham City?”

Carrie paused. “Huh?”

“You got Selina,” Aaliyah said. “And from what I hear, she put the moves on henchwomen back when she was Catwoman.”

“You heard that too, huh?”

“Then there’s Cass and Steph. I heard that there’s been some tension between those two for, like, a million years. And judging from the damage to both of their faces this morning, I’m pretty sure that tension got released.”

“Good for them.”

“I hear stuff about Barbara and this Black Canary chick?”

“They are in a flux state of both _‘they boned’ _and _‘they didn’t bone’ _until actual video evidence of sexual congress surfaces. Like Schrodinger’s Cat, only with strap-ons instead of poison gas.”

“There was visi-thirst on Harper’s face when she was hanging out with that chick in the cowboy hat yesterday.”

“That’s Jinny Hex,” Carrie said. “Y’know, I can see the two of them together.”

“The one Batwoman that Gotham had lives on Themyscira now with her swole Princess boo.”

_“‘Princess Boo’ _is now Diana’s nickname,” Carrie said. “I speak this into existence. I have a question for your question.”

A loud pop. Aaliyah got an extra ball. She felt like she could walk on water. And if there was a pool in this big, shiny dungeon of a house, she’d try it out later.

“Shoot,” Aaliyah said.

“Was that question just your roundabout way of asking me whether or not _I _was straight?” Carrie asked.

Aaliyah sighed.

“I mean, I _am,” _Carrie said. “But if I wasn’t, girl, that ain’t a way to fish for answers.”

“Apart from my original question,” Aaliyah said, “what _would _be the way to fish for answers?”

“Simple,” Carrie said. “You don’t. It’s one of those things where if you need to know, you’ll get told.”

“Anyway,” said Aaliyah, “I was not asking that as a way to figure out if you’re straight.”

“But?”

“But,” Aaliyah said, “I was asking as a way to figure out whether or not I could talk about boys in front of you without you pitying me for how my number in the Sexual Orientation Lottery panned out. Yes, I like guys, and I’m self-aware enough to know that it's a tragedy, but I don’t feel like being humored right now. Or _ever, _come to think of it.”

Carrie was quiet for a bit. Aaliyah was still keeping her eye on the game, so she couldn’t see her expression. Until Carrie finally said:

“You wanna talk about Jon, don’t you?”

“Oh, _God,” _Aaliyah said, “Yes. Yes, I do.”

“I thought so.”

“I mean, I don’t want to fuck up The Bechdel Test, but talking about boys is a pastime for me. Up there with croquet and discussions on how the Plantagenets tried to undermine the Magna Carta. I mean, you don’t have a thing for him, do you?”

“No,” Carrie said. “Not my type. I prefer street kids, not farm boys. Although Jon Lane-Kent is a very pretty guy.”

“He _is.”_

“Mmm-hmm.”

_“Ruthless!”_

“Yup.”

“I have surveyed his capacity for ruth, and found it _sorely _lacking.”

Carrie’s giggle was cut off by a loud crash, and the pained grousing of two separate female voices. Followed by Selina Wayne angrily asking _“What the fuck do you two think you’re doing?”_

Both Carrie’s and Aaliyah’s eyes went to the doorway.

Aaliyah lost her ball.

* * *

Selina had been walking down the hallway with Barbara, telling her how two uniformed officers from the GCPD had come to the manor yesterday to summon her to City Hall for questioning tomorrow morning, when the two of them had been assaulted by the sight and sound of crashing metal and two women groaning in pain.

Two bicycles were overturned in the narrow hallway. Two plastic broomsticks scattered on the burgundy carpet. And ornamenting the wreckage were the moaning and pained bodies of Cassandra Wayne and Stephanie Brown.

_“What the fuck do you two think you’re doing?” _Selina asked, unable to keep the anger from her voice.

“We were… we were jousting,” said Stephanie.

_“Jousting?”_

“Like in medieval times?” Barbara asked, pinching the bridge of her nose in embarrassment beneath her yellow-tinted glasses. Selina had only now noticed that Aaliyah and Carrie had poked their heads out from the arcade.

“Yeah,” Cassandra said, holding her shoulder and grimacing. “It was my idea.”

“Did I at any time teach you that doing something this fucking stupid was the right thing to do?” Barbara asked.

“I’ve wanted to do this since I was seventeen.”

“Then why didn’t you _do _it when you were seventeen?” Selina asked.

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “What was I gonna do? Come out and _say _it?”

“That’s… Okay, that’s actually a good point.”

“And you couldn’t do this outside?’ Barbara asked.

“No,” said Cassandra. “Too much room. We’d chicken out.”

Selina felt a headache instantaneously bloom in the back of her skull.

“And _you,” _Barbara said to Stephanie. “You went along with this?”

Selina gave Barbara the stink-eye. “Babs?”

“Right,” Barbara said. “Sorry.”

For there was an unwritten rule: Only Babs was allowed to yell at Cassandra for being a dumbass, and Selina reserved the right for Steph. That rule had been in play for a decade and a half, now.

“Alright then,” Selina said, before she turned to the pained Steph and asked _“And you greenlit this tomfuckery?”_

Stephanie shrugged. “I was feeling saucy.”

Cassandra nodded. “She was.”

“I was feeling _Arkan-Saucy!”_

To which Cassandra replied by kicking Stephanie in the shin.

“Knock that shit off!” Selina said, and both Cass and Steph fell silent.

“Alright,” Barbara said. “Can we at least agree that two women in their thirties who got into a series of fights last night jousting in the middle of a hallway with bikes and brooms is a _terrible fucking idea?”_

“Oh, I can admit that,” Cassandra said, clutching her ribs. _“Ow…”_

From a few feet away. Carrie elected to speak.

“I have a question,” she asked, and all four grown-ass women looked at her.

Carrie pointed at the carnage on the floor and asked:

“Who won?”

* * *

Stephanie had walked into one of the East Wing bedrooms and hunted for the adjacent bathroom. She opened the medicine cabinet and there, on the middle shelf, lie her quarry.

Icy-Hot.

Stephanie Brown had never felt more an old woman than when she unscrewed the lid from the jar of Icy-Hot, got a fingerful of the foul smelling goop, lifted up the back of her baby blue t-shirt, and started applying it to the left side of her lower back.

She’d hurt that particular part of her body during the fall down the concrete stairs that she had taken the night before. Further… _exertions… _with Cassandra later that night may have exacerbated the problem in the area. And that problem was no doubt magnified by the sudden fancy the two women had taken toward mid-mansion horseless jousting.

Just the _sound _that Stephanie made when she applied the Icy-Hot.

_“Uggggghhhhhhh…”_

Because it was the good shit.

But if one classifies Icy-Hot as the good shit, then one just might, in stark contrast with roaring spirit and willing flesh, be just a tad on the old side. Or at least, this was Stephanie Brown’s line of reasoning.

She put the Icy-Hot back, closed the medicine cabinet, put her shirt back over the waist-line of her jeans, and walked back into the bedroom proper…

...right into the steely gaze of one Bruce Wayne.

_“GYAAAHHHHH!”_

Stephanie neither heard the door in the adjacent bedroom open, nor his footsteps as he entered.

Six years out of the cowl, and Bruce still had the ninja thing down. Even at his advanced age. Props, Stephanie reckoned, must indeed be given.

“You still got it, Bruce,” Stephanie said as she caught her breath.

Bruce said nothing.

Instead he walked toward her. Slowly. The floorboards creaked under his loafers. He could make noise if he wanted to, and he wanted to now.

Stephanie felt her pulse accelerate. She was, in an instant, one of the many faceless mooks that this man had pummeled into unconscious red smears. She instinctively backed into the wall.

He was but a few inches away, now. Staring down at her with his cold blue eyes, the rest of his face passive. She could see the lines around his eyes. They only made him more intimidating.

Finally, Bruce said “This is the first time we’ve spoken in fourteen years.”

Stephanie nodded. Her mouth wasn’t working.

“I’ve had fourteen years,” Bruce said, “to think about the night you left. Your father dying. Game Seven.”

Her heart was hammering inside her chest. The force seemingly loosened her tongue.

“And?” she asked.

It was only then that he blinked. He looked her up and down, held his tongue for but a moment, and finally said:

“You didn’t do it.”

And with that, he turned and began to walk away.

Stephanie’s pulse slowed down, for which she was grateful. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, for which she was not.

“Wait,” Stephanie said. “That’s _it?”_

Bruce stopped, and turned to look at her.

“Yes,” he said. “All is not forgiven, because there is nothing to forgive you for. You tried to save your father, and you failed. It’s unfortunate. It’s terrible. But it happens. You didn’t want us around to help you before. But we’re here to help you now. Ask. You’ll go far. But until then… Make yourself at home.”

Bruce turned to walk away again. Stephanie was not inclined toward having that shit.

“Wait,” Stephanie said.

Bruce stopped his turn, and sighed.

“How, uh… How did you come to this conclusion?” she asked.

“If you meant to drop Cluemaster to his death,” Bruce said, “you’d have stayed. You’d have lied and said you dropped him by accident, and you’d have taken whatever reprimand or punishment that we saw fit with a smile on your face. Because someone who’d held the urge to murder their father their entire lives would want to get away with it. But you didn’t do that, Stephanie. You left because a conscience that a murderer would not possess compelled you to flee.”

“So… You’re saying that my doing the thing a _guilty _person would do proves my _innocence?” _Stephanie asked. “Who in God’s name would run from a murder that they didn’t commit?”

“A Gotham City vigilante,” Bruce said. “And a complete imbecile.”

Stephanie didn’t know what to say to that.

“I’m not judging you,” Bruce said. “I’ve been both. The things asked of us are different than those asked of others. It shifts perspective. Skews it on occasion. The trick is to spot it when it happens. You don’t seem to have it down yet.”

Stephanie couldn’t help but emit a half-hearted chuckle. “Y’know… The one thing I thought made me special was the fact that unlike you… unlike Kate… unlike Cass… no one _died _to make me who I was. I put a cape on because, hand-to God, I just wanted to help.”

She shrugged. “In the end… That was the last thing Arthur Brown took from me. His blood spills, and I’m just another Gotham City dipshit who knows kung-fu and has a tragic backstory.” 

“Whatever nobility you possess only leaves if you let it go,” Bruce said.

Stephanie snorted. “I may have become Spoiler because I was a nice person, but I _stayed _Spoiler because I had a thing for a girl that didn’t have a thing for me back. Not very pure, as far as motives go.”

“No,” Bruce said. “You love my daughter. There _is _no purer motive.”

Just hearing that from someone as spare and matter-of-fact as Bruce Wayne almost made her choke on the air she was breathing. But she finally said one word.

_“‘Loved.’”_

Bruce tilted his head at her.

“I am… I am _way _too old to keep re-litigating my teenage years. Me and Cass got our tension out of the way, and… and it’s time to leave the past where it is, isn’t it?”

Bruce put his hands on his hips. His blue eyes bore into her from beneath hooded brows.

_Okay, _now _he’s judging me…_

“I am fifty-one years old,” Bruce said. “I’m re-litigating _one _event that happened to me when I was _eight. _ You don’t get to play that card with me and expect to get far.”

And then, finally, Bruce Wayne turned and left the bedroom, leaving Stephanie to hold the bag.

* * *

Barbara Gordon felt the strong, sneaky arms of Cassandra Wayne wrap her in a hug from behind as she stood on one of the East Wing bedroom balconies, looking out upon the blanket of fog beneath her.

She was trying to clear her head.

“How are you holding up?” Cassandra asked.

Barbara knew she was asking about Dick. Which was the one thing of which she was trying to clear her mind to begin with.

“I’m fine,” Barbara said.

Which was a lie. Being here in this house, where she and Dick had argued and trained and played and fell in love… It just felt like an intrusive and loud swarm of bees around the periphery of her very being. She couldn’t concentrate.

Now Ra’s al Ghul and the Arkham Knight had stolen the dead body of the first man she’d ever loved. For what purpose, she could not even guess at.

And it was driving her insane.

Cassandra came around and smiled at Barbara warmly. And Barbara felt a tiny smidge of that pent-up aggression and anguish wither into nothing.

The one thought she had was:

_I should tell her about Simon._

Barbara Gordon missed Simon Baz. If she were in the Clock Tower, he could just come in and they could talk, hang out, _make _out, and… whatever. But Barbara was going to be holed up in Wayne Manor for the foreseeable future, and she had to expressly forbid Simon from coming to Wayne Manor for fear of the secret getting out at such a sensitive time.

She hoped Simon could hold himself to that.

But then again… she kinda hoped he didn’t.

Barbara washed that man right out of her mind, and pointed to Cassandra’s face.

“You know, you never told me what happened there.”

“I, um… I got into a fight.”

“I can see that,” Barbara said. “What I want to know is who’s good enough to do that to the most dangerous unarmed woman on the planet.”

Cassandra lowered her head, letting that mop of black hair of hers obscure her face. Barbara knew Cass well enough to know that this was what she did when she was embarrassed.

“I… got into a fight… with… Steph.”

Then she looked into Barbara’s eyes, and Barbara couldn't help but feel the shock spread across her own face.

“Uh… _huh,” _Barbara said. “And… if I were to guess what happened _after _the fight you and Steph had…”

“Then you’d guess correctly.”

“Uh… _huh,” _Barbara said again, and Cassandra once again hung her head, letting her hair hide her visage.

“Okay,” Barbara said. “There’s one thing I want to know.”

_“Oh, dear God…”_

“Did you win the fight?”

Cassandra’s head shot up. Her face was a mask of confusion.

_“That’s _what you want to know?”

Barbara sighed. “You have to understand something. Even back in the day, you were _my _kid, and Steph was _Selina’s _kid.”

“Yeah, that was kind of obvious.”

“But did you know,” Barbara asked, “about The Great Gotham Team-Up?”

“Yeah,” Cassandra said. “I’ve read all the old Batman files.”

“The Great Gotham Team-Up happened just a few days before The Joker shot me and put me in a wheelchair,” Barbara said. “But the last one-on-one fight I had with a supervillain as Batgirl was with Catwoman on the night of The Great Gotham Team-Up.”

“Did you win?”

“No, I did not,” Barbara said, surprising herself with how much the fact still rankled over two decades later. “It wasn’t even close. I got my ass handed to me.”

“Wow.”

“So twenty years later,” Barbara said, “I’m gonna be as petty as petty can be as I ask whether or not _my _kid beat up _her _kid. Did you win the fight?” 

“It was close,” Cassandra said. “Real close. But… yeah. I did.”

Barbara felt herself beaming at Cassandra.

“Good,” she said.

Whatever else Barbara was going to say was lost to time, as the familiar sound of crashing machinery came from all the way out in the hall.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Barbara said, before she barged into the bedroom. Cassandra followed.

What awaited the two of them in the East Wing hallway was the sight of two overturned bicycles, and two stray broomsticks. Only instead of Cassandra Wayne and Stephanie Brown clutching their rib cages and making old lady noises, it was Aaliyah Ramsey and Carrie Kelley laughing until their faces turned red.

They had been jousting.

Barbara turned to the clearly mortified Cassandra.

“You’re a bad influence, young lady.”

* * *

Harper Row sat in a chair next to the doorway of the billiard room, checking her phone. Tim Drake leaned against the bar on the side of this room that held four billiard tables, nursing a can of Sprite. Violet Paige, for her part, was playing pool against herself, knocking the balls off the green felt bumpers with her cue, displaying no knowledge or finesse whatsoever for the game.

The one pleasant memory that Harper Row had of Marcus Row, her abusive, criminal fuckhead father who died in prison, was of teaching her how to play pool when she was eight.

“Six ball,” Violet said. “Corner pocket.”

_Click!_

The six ball went nowhere near the corner pocket.

“Fuck you, corner pocket!”

Mayor Alysia Yeoh was not responding to any of Harper’s texts. So she switched off her phone, shoved it in her jacket and said, apropos of nothing:

“I want to fight crime.”

Tim looked at her deadpan. Violet, on the other hand, froze in place in such an ostentatious way that Harper felt like laughing.

“What?” Violet asked. “Like, uh… _Municipally? _ Is that a word?”

“I’m not sure,” said Tim.

“No,” Harper said. “Not in any political way. I want to dress up in a costume, screw around on rooftops, and beat people until their hair stops growing.”

“Then do it,” said Violet.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” asked Tim.

Harper just looked at her ex-husband as though he’d lost his mind. _ “‘Why n--’ _Bitch, why don’t _you?”_

Tim shrugged the same way he always did when Harper was fixing to get down to arguing. “Because I don’t _want _to. You clearly do. So do it.”

“You know it’s not that simple, Tim.”

“I’m with Tim on this one,” said Violet.

Harper snorted. “Of course you are.”

Violet yet again froze in place. “The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

Harper looked between the two of them, trying to keep the suddenly-breaking smile off of her face.

She’d been watching these two, both today and yesterday at Dick’s wake. Trying to read their body language, eavesdropping on snippets of their conversations.

Tim Drake and Violet Paige were in the pre-relationship stupidity phase.

But what made this delicious was that neither of them knew it. Neither of them were even admitting it to themselves.

Harper remembered that morning sixteen years ago, the day after Mister Mxyzptlk dropped the knowledge of The Multiverse upon them. Harper had to literally straddle Tim on his bed in this very wing of Wayne Manor, and jam her tongue down his throat to convince her that she, y’know, _like-liked _him.

And now, all these years later, Tim had finally found a woman who was as rock fucking stupid about relationships as he was.

It was in this moment, in this very instant in time… that she shipped ‘em. She shipped ‘em _hard _. Yes, Violet Paige was raw, coarse, unbelievably crude, and deeply dangerous. _But that just made it so much better _! Tim living happily ever after was just as likely as their prospective relationship foundering like the _Edmund Fitzgerald. _ Harper could successfully conceptualize the two facts that Tim Drake was both a good man in general, and a shitty husband to her in specific. 

No matter where this went, entertainment was sure to follow.

Finally, after having become aware that she’d held her silence for too long, she said “Because the two of you have been hanging out so much.”

“You still haven’t answered the question,” Tim said. “Why can’t you go back to being Bluebird?”

Harper rolled her eyes. “You know that thing you’ve been looking after for the past nine years that you think is a bag of rocks? That’s our daughter Mattie-Ann, you putz. I can’t run around letting gang members give me concussions because I have a fucking kid at home!”

“So?” Tim asked.

“What do you mean, _‘So?’”_

“‘So?’ is what I mean,” Tim said. “Roy Harper had a kid a hell of a lot younger than Mattie-Ann. Roy Harper stayed in the game. Both Roy and Lian turned out just fine.”

“Well,” Harper said, “We can’t all be as mature, responsible, and well-adjusted as Roy Fucking Harper.”

Tim blinked at her in confusion, before he said “Oh, I’m sorry, it just took me a second to realize you were actually being serious.”

“Wow,” Violet said.

Tim looked at her. “What?”

“She is throwing a shit-ton of aggression at you, and you just side-step it like you’re figure skating.”

“It’s why I left him,” Harper said.

Violet’s smile got wide. “And she is throwing your shit out in the _street, _too! Goddamn, I’ve never seen anything _like _this!”

She looked at Harper. “Hey, Harper. What’s Tim’s favorite position in bed?”

Harper felt like her heart had just stopped.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Violet said. “What’s he gonna do, get _mad?”_

This… was true.

There were any number of joke responses that Harper could have given… but she decided, in the moment to be honest. Just to see what would happen.

“Lady on top,” Harper said. “With his right hand below the belly button, so his thumb has easy access to the, uh… _‘joy-buzzer.’”_

Violet smiled, seemingly impressed. “That’s, uh… That’s _considerate.”_

“I try,” said Tim.

“Trust me,” said Harper, “that’s the only thing he’s considerate about.”

Tim shrugged. “That’s fair.” 

“Most embarrassing pet name?” Violet asked Harper.

Harper’s reply was instant. “Johnny Fuckleseed.”

Violet burst out laughing to an extent that she needed to lean on her pool cue to keep herself standing.

_“‘J--Johnny Fuckleseed?’”_

“I told him,” Harper said, “that if I were Robin, I would not give a fuck. Tim being like he was back in the day, he was tossing out fucks like he was Johnny Appleseed. Hence the name…”

They all said it simultaneously.

_“Johnny Fuckleseed!”_

“I was such an insecure little snatch hair back then,” Tim said. “How am I not an improvement now?”

“If you have to ask, you’ll never know,” Harper said.

“Okay,” Violet said, turning back to Harper. “You ready to play for big money and fantastic prizes?”

“I sure am, Pat.”

“Alright,” Violet said. “What was it that drew Tim to you in the first place?”

_Wow…_

_You asked that out loud with just the one layer of subterfuge between you and the truth._

_Violet Paige, you are a fucking moron._

Harper opened her mouth… when the truth hit her.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“You have to understand something,” Harper said, feeling uncomfortable. “I had to commit a borderline act of sexual assault just to convince Tim I was interested in him. As for what drew him to me… I really have no idea.”

She folded her arms over her stomach. If there were any lingering questions as to why her marriage failed, they had just been answered.

Tim had begun scratching the back of his neck. His fall back spot whenever he was nervous.

“It was… It was like you had an idea what was going on,” he said. “I didn’t. And when I got my own ideas, they, uh… they weren’t yours.”

Harper didn’t really know what that meant.

“Okay,” Violet said, suddenly animated in an obvious attempt to lighten the mood. “What about _now? _ What would it take to get into the boxers of one Timothy Jackson Drake?”

Tim stopped scratching his neck. “How do you know my middle name?”

“I Googled you,” Harper said. “And don’t change the subject.”

“It’s easy,” Tim said. “She has to like my daughter.”

Harper could not keep her one thought from leaving her mouth.

And that thought was _“Awwwwwww.”_

“That’s it?” Violet asked, obviously not a believer. “That’s all it takes?”

“No.”

“What else?”

Tim took a sip of his soda, and said “My daughter has to like her back.”

* * *

There was a wildness within Cassandra Wayne this afternoon that she simply could not shake.

Everyone from her teenage years as Orphan, as Batgirl, were under the same roof yet again. Everyone had gotten older, and the context had changed, but there was an invigoration inside her that spread out to her fingertips. If someone had strolled idly by to ask her just how old she was, she’d have struggled a bit before she gave the right answer.

_I swear to God, I was eighteen a minute ago…_

So when Cassandra came upon Stephanie Brown on the third floor of the East Wing, just opening doors and casually looking inside, she hit upon the idea that she’d communicate with her non-verbally for as long as she possibly could, just to see how long it would take until Stephanie noticed.

She thought it would be funny.

“Hey,” Stephanie said when she saw her.

Cassandra gave her the finger-guns.

“I’m just looking in, seeing how much has changed.”

Cassandra nodded.

“Remember when we’d walk in on Tim and Harper making out in one of these rooms back in the day?”

Cassandra nodded again, just a little bit more enthusiastically.

“Jesus,” Stephanie said. “Fucking _disgusting _is what it was.”

Cassandra tilted her head, and then nudged Stephanie’s shoulder with her finger. Stephanie turned to her.

“What?”

Cassandra made her mouth an upside-down U, raised her eyebrows, and gave an exaggerated shrug, with her hands in the air.

Stephanie looked at her like she was an unruly toddler. “Are you telling me you want to sneak into one of these rooms and make out like they did back in the day?”

Cassandra raised one eyebrow a little bit higher than the other, and smiled as though she were the model in an ad for mints: the international facial expression for _“Hells the fuck yes I do.”_

Stephanie opened her mouth, and then closed it. Her face slackened. She seemed to deflate. And Cassandra almost broke her whim of nonverbal communication to ask her what was wrong.

“We’re too old,” Stephanie finally said. Her voice was small and weak.

Cassandra just stared.

“You need to understand something,” Stephanie said, before she opened the door.

And then she stopped, eyes wide. 

Cassandra had to peek inside the room to see what had staggered her so, and then her own eyes did the saucer impression as well.

Stephanie Brown, who seemed opposed to the idea of two people in their thirties sneaking off to make out like teenagers had just opened the door to a room that contained… two people in their thirties making out like teenagers.

Upon the small sofa within the bedroom, Jason Todd had his right leg wrapped around Cullen Row’s waist. Cullen had his left hand buried beneath the rear waist of both Jason’s black slacks, and Jason’s boxer shorts. Both of their ties were on the Persian rug that decorated the hardwood floor, as were their blazers. Cullen had Jason’s lower lip between his teeth, and only let go when he saw they had unexpected company. It… seemed he was caught pre-or-post move.

Jason, at the very least, looked embarrassed.

Cullen did not.

His hand moved from the swell of Jason’s ass to his hips, pulling him closer in an act of sexual defiance as he stared daggers into the two women. Then he asked:

“Do… you… _mind?”_

Even outside her flight of fancy to stay quiet, she would have been speechless anyway. One look at Stephanie told her that she suffered from the same condition. Until finally, the two of them sheepishly exited the room, and softly closed the door behind them.

For a few moments, both Cassandra and Stephanie just looked down, staring at the carpet.

And Cassandra’s play at silence finally came to an end.

“I’m just happy Jason’s gonna be getting out of the apartment building more.”

* * *

Bruce Wayne sat alone among the sculptures and paintings of Wayne Manor’s East Wing art gallery.

He had no head for art. Most of these purchases were made by the late Alfred Pennyworth. Superhero outfits and gadgets were as far as his aesthetic sensibilities went.

Unless, of course, one were to extend one’s definition of aesthetics to human beings. In which case, Bruce Wayne was more than fully cognizant of the fact that he was married to the most divine creature on Earth. Which was where Bruce Wayne’s conventional understanding of a higher power ended as well.

Selina Wayne’s black sneakers skidded upon the marble floor as she entered the expansive gallery, and sat down on the small black bench next to him. She put her arm around his waist, put her head on his shoulder, and said nothing.

The painting before which they sat went from the floor to the ceiling. It was a portrait of a man in his thirties with black hair and warm blue eyes sitting in a red leather lounge chair near a fireplace. A woman in a white silk gown with sandy brown hair and hazel eyes stood next to him, her slender and delicate arm resting upon the back of the chair behind the man’s neck.

It was a painting of Thomas and Martha Wayne.

Bruce, in the thicket of his early memories, remembered when his parents had had this painting commissioned. They sat for hours upon hours in the lounge as the artist, a small man with a bushy mustache, did the groundwork for this portrait. Alfred had had to take the then five-year-old Bruce to a couple of baseball games within the city so the artist, Francois Guillaume, could conduct his initial sketches in peace.

And now that five-year-old boy was over ten times older, sitting in front of that painting of his parents with his own wife. And both of them were twelve and thirteen years older than Thomas and Martha Wayne had been when they were murdered.

A thought that had been at the forefront of Bruce’s mind since Dick Grayson had died played yet again.

_History does not repeat itself, but it does on occasion rhyme._

Bruce had not given any thought of having a portrait of himself and Selina commissioned. He wondered if it was too late.

But Selina wouldn’t sit still for it. Both literally and figuratively. And Bruce himself did not quite see the point.

A further sense of unease pervaded Bruce’s being. The fear that this might be the only meaningful way the pattern of his existence broke. The refusal of a worthless licensing of his own image for private exhibition within the walls of this very house, where his parents had accepted such a thing. 

He was destined to lose.

He felt a king. Not in a sense of might or power, but in a sense that he was the very visible figurehead of a great mass of people. All as fallible and mortal as he was. As his father was.

And his father died. Alongside his mother. Shot dead in an alley like rabid dogs.

He did not bid the memory, but it came anyway. Four seconds that altered the course of a man and of a city. Four seconds was all it took for an uncaring, indifferent universe to subtract from itself Thomas and Martha Wayne.

_History does not repeat itself, but it does on occasion rhyme._

Bruce had to wonder in what way history would further insist upon rhyming. Existence took his son from him. What encore was there?

“Escort a lady to City Hall tomorrow?” Selina asked.

Bruce looked down at her, kissed the top of her head, and squeezed her closer. Almost protectively, as though in an attempt to shield her from unseen enemies.

* * *

Barbara Gordon sat alone in the East Wing music room, at one of the two grand pianos, and awkwardly tried to bang out _Chopsticks._

Two grand pianos in the center of this small room, and the instruments needed for a string quartet lined the walls. She figured that this must be the _chamber _from which _chamber music _was made. She found it. The one chamber. _Yay, me!_

The door opened behind her, and she craned her neck to look around.

It was Harper.

“Hey,” Harper said, and Barbara said the same thing in reply.

Barbara Gordon and Harper Row did not initially get along. For when two know-it-alls see each other in the wild, their first instinct is to fight like feral cats.

But only the best know-it-alls get over it, and Barbara Gordon considered herself and Harper Row very much that. Their mutual admiration and respect grew to the point that Barbara had asked Bluebird to join the Birds of Prey. Harper refused, wishing to stay somewhat indie, and Barbara respected the hell out of that. Barbara had even been in the waiting room along side Tim, Bruce, Selina, Dick, and Cass when Harper gave birth to Mattie-Ann.

Harper sat down at the other grand piano, cracked her knuckles, and immediately started pounding out what Barbara instantly identified as the piano intro to Muse’s _Sunburn._

“What… the fuck?” Barbara asked when Harper was done.

“When I was little,” Harper said, “we lived next to a piano tuner.”

“Who needs a piano tuned on _Bleake Island?”_

“Wonders never cease,” Harper said. “Guy taught me the basics. It was the summer and I was eight. The hell else was I gonna do? You play?”

“Do I _play?” _Barbara asked. _ “Ha!”_

She flexed her fingers and asked “Let’s see if you remember this oldie.”

At which point Barbara pressed all ten fingers in the middle of the keys, turned to Harper, and droned:

_“I love you, biiiiiiitch.”_

Harper almost fell off the piano bench, she laughed so hard.

Barbara’s fingers pressed down on the keys again, before she turned back to Harper.

_“I ain’t never gonna stop lovin’ you, biiiiiiiitch.”_

* * *

“So what don’t I understand?” Cassandra asked Stephanie.

The library was two levels, taking up space on the first and second floors of the East Wing. Stephanie was standing in a row on the second level, staring down a shelf full of books on… tax law.

There were only a finite number of literary classics in the world. Apparently not enough to fill a library this big.

“Well?” Cassandra asked. Kinda loud.

Stephanie raised her eyebrows at Cassandra, and put a finger to her lips.

“We’re in a private library,” Cassandra said. “Not a public one. And we’re the only ones here.”

_Oh._

_Right._

It still felt weird, though.

“What don’t I understand?” Cassandra asked yet again.

Stephanie folded her arms, leaned against the opposite shelf, and closed her eyes.

“How do you see this going?” Stephanie asked.

“I don’t know,” Cassandra said. “I thought that was the fun part.”

“You’re making the assumption I’m staying here in Gotham once this is all said and done.”

Cassandra folded her arms herself, getting into what Stephanie could identify as a semi-aggressive stance.

“Why wouldn’t you?” Cassandra asked. “You’ve been living in hotel rooms for the last fourteen years, and now you’re home. Around people who know you.”

“I have a life that isn’t this,” Stephanie said. “And…”

Stephanie grabbed hold of a thought that wouldn’t come out unless prodded by someone else.

_“And?”_

“And,” Stephanie said, “I’m waiting for the bottom to fall out.”

Cassandra seemed completely flummoxed by that. She just stared at Stephanie with her mouth open.

“Look,” Stephanie said. “The two greatest desires of eighteen-year-old me were _talking _to Cassandra Cain, and getting into Cassandra Cain’s _pants. _ And now I’ve done them. And they both _more _than lived up to the hype.”

“And now you’re waiting for me to disappoint you?”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

_“Life!” _Stephanie said, loud enough for voice to echo. _ “Fate! _ The whole… fucking _existence, _okay?”

Cassandra rubbed her eyes. “I seem to recall Spoiler telling me that hope could get her through a lot before she went off to fight Damian Wayne. Would that girl recognize you right now?”

“Maybe not,” Stephanie said. “Look, I’m _proud _of the whole Natalie Venora thing I’ve done for the past fifteen years, but I’m not _happy _with it. It was _not _my first choice. And that’s when life started telling me that I have to start compromising here and there. And if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Now, ever since I got back here yesterday…”

Her thoughts collided like two handfuls of like Play-Doh, the separate colors melding into each other. It was like she had to pick the flecks of one out of the other with her thumbnail, before putting those flecks back.

“If you asked Stephanie Brown, setting foot on English soil the first time after her father died, what would be the best case, good dream scenario of what would happen if I just bought the return ticket and came back to Gotham, it would be this. I wasn’t on the grounds of Wayne Manor for a minute before the entire Justice League came out and started hugging me. Selina’s opinion of me hasn’t changed a bit. _Bruce _managed to forgive me today! Fucking _Bruce! _ He took time out of mourning for Dick and being his super-serious self to reassure me that I have nothing to worry about. And then there’s _you. _ And… And I know something dark is coming. I have to pay for this somehow. And where I am in my life…”

Stephanie figured that there were times in one's life when one had to baldly state their theses. And this was one of those times.

“I’m too old to feel this young,” Stephanie said.

Cassandra was quiet for a time. A fringe of black hair covered her face as she looked down.

“Be my friend,” Stephanie said. “We can do that, right? Pick up where we left off?”

“Last night,” Cassandra said as she still looked down, “you beat my brains out… picked them up… put them back in my head… and fucked them out again… just to come to the conclusion that we should be _friends?”_

“Don’t say that like it’s weird.”

Cassandra, to her credit, snorted. She looked up after a moment of pause, and said “Done.”

Stephanie furrowed her brow. “Just like that?”

Cassandra nodded. “I knew you then, Steph. And I know you now. So I can say that my life for the last fourteen years would have been better with you in it. _Some _of you really is better than _none _of you. Compromise, right? If that’s what it takes to keep you, then that’s what I’ll give… And it’s not like you weren’t going to be my best friend anyway, whether you were my… _whatever… _or not.”

And with that, Cassandra held out her fist.

Stephanie bumped it.

* * *

An hour ago, Jason took Carrie and Aaliyah out to the movies. It was agreed upon by all parties that this was a better way for the two young ladies to spend their time than jousting within the halls of Wayne Manor.

Two teenage girls had prevented Cullen Row from getting his entire fuck on with a hot guy in a mansion. This had been on his bucket list ever since he knew with a certainty that he was gay, and for this transgression by Carrie and Aaliyah upon his mission in life, he would make the two regret the day they had been expelled from their mothers… Or failing that, he would spit in their cereal. Whichever was easier, and came first.

Cullen stood in an East Wing bathroom, taking a lint roller to his black jacket. It had been on the floor after all, and even in a house full of people trying to keep secrets, it was incumbent upon both his station and his personality to look as fly as humanly possible.

Were there such a thing as a Butler Code, that exact clause would be on the first page.

He set the lint roller on the sink, put his jacket back on, left the bathroom…

...and stopped.

A man Cullen had never seen before was standing in the middle of the hallway, admiring a painting of a vase filled with orchids. He was clad in black, from his boots, to his body armor, to the balaclava that hid his face.

He looked into the hallway. His eyes met Cullen’s, and he slightly jumped in surprise.

Cullen and this unknown fellow just stared at each other for a time, until the man sheepishly waved.

As Cullen took in a breath to scream bloody murder, something hit him in the back of the head. The floor came up to meet his face.

His vision blurred. He tried to focus with a rapidly fading will. He saw a seemingly never-ending stream of similarly clad men came from a room that Cullen, even in his near-unconscious state, correctly identified as the study.

As Cullen gradually succumbed to the blackout, one terrifying thought ran roughshod through his brain.

The Batcave.

They were coming from inside the Batcave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Great thanks must go to frequent commenter, one-time co-author, and Tumblr Consigliere Sapphixxx, who shot some ideas to me about where these characters would end up at the end of this chapter. Because the rooms they're in now are the rooms where they'll be having their action sequences on Thursday. If you delight at Cass going John Wick 3 on some goons with a pair of books, she'd be the one you should thank.


	23. A Rumble in Wayne Manor

**Chapter 23: A Rumble in Wayne Manor**

Cassandra heard heavy boots thunking on the floor of the library’s first level.

“What the…”

That's when the door on the second level burst open. Black clad soldiers--the Arkham Knight’s men--started piling through. Cassandra’s immediate count was six.

Her immediate response was to jump on the long oak table next to her. Now with altitude for momentum, she ran across the table, leapt with her foot out, and dropped the guy at the front of the party of six. The other five staggered back from the impact.

As she kipped up, she heard a groan of exertion from the rows.

“NNNNNNNNNYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!”

And the third row in started tipping over. It collided with the second row with a colossal THUD… causing the first row to begin to tip over on top of four of the five standing henchmen.

Cassandra had to dive out of the way of the falling oak shelf and the thick, heavy books on tax law as it fell to the ground, subsuming the four goons in a boredom avalanche.

From where the third row once stood, Stephanie Brown sauntered, arms folded, lips smiling, a thin sheen of sweat developing on her forehead.

The henchman who fell in Cassandra’s initial assault groggily got back to his feet. Cassandra rewarded his perseverance with a one-punch KO.

Stephanie opened her arms. “Feed me!”

Cassandra looked at the sole remaining henchman, who had observed the last few seconds in sheer dumbfoundedness. She grabbed him by the shoulder, and shoved him toward Steph.

Stephanie greeted this fellow with a kick to the instep. He dropped to his right knee, and she paintbrushed his face with a palm-strike and elbow to the head in one blindingly quick stroke. It sounded like a lightning strike. It decimated him, and his neck whipped to his left before he keeled forward. Stephanie had to sidestep him to avoid his fall.

As Cassandra looked at Stephanie, the sound of clanging metal came from the direction of the steel railing.

The guys on the first floor were coming up by two separate grappling hooks.

Both Cassandra and Stephanie went to the railing and saw two Squires coming up each line.

Then they looked at each other and smiled, each knowing what the other was thinking.

Cassandra and Stephanie both straddled the rail, and grabbed the lines. If the Squires were coming up, they were going down.

One of the Squires knew what was about to happen. “NO! GUYS, FALL BACK!”

Too late.

Cassandra and Stephanie wrapped their legs around the grapple lines, and went into freefall.

All six of them landed painfully on the hard wood floor of the first level.

* * *

Bruce heard the boots in the hallway outside the gallery. Instinctively, he tensed up. Judging by the grip she had around his waist, so had Selina.

“Mind the art,” he said.

“It’s just _stuff, _Sailor.”

“Alfred picked it out.”

“Ugh. _Fine.”_

Eight black-clad Squires burst into the gallery to wage bloody war against two fifty-something members of the one percent who hadn’t been in a fight against non-holographic opponents in years.

Bruce waited until Selina got up before he stood, grabbed the black fiberglass bench upon which the two had been sitting, and brought it up in a golf-swing motion against the two Squires up front. It connected with their jaws, and they were out cold instantly.

Selina Wayne, old lady that she was, jumped. She rebounded off the white wall, with her knees at neck level of the nearest Squire. In mid-air, she wrapped her thighs around the poor bastard’s neck and head-scissored the top of his skull into the black and white marble floor. Bruce heard the fellow cut a loud fart as he passed out from shock and trauma, and lost control of his body.

She swept the the legs out from under another one as the other three advanced toward Bruce.

He readied himself.

Bruce managed to block blows from the two on the sides with his forearms, but an elbow to the breadbasket from the one in the middle caused him to skid back.

The one in the middle decided to press the advantage.

He didn’t get far.

A right from Bruce caught the guy under the chin as he was winding up for one of his own. It knocked his head back, and would have sent him toppling into a podium holding up a priceless sculpture of… _something, _Bruce didn’t know what, had he not reached out and grabbed him by the bulletproof vest.

He spun the dazed Squire around and used him as a human shield against the remaining two.

The one on the right moved in, trying to angle a compromised right around his compatriot’s head. But Bruce punched the man he was holding in the back of the skull so hard that he jerked forward, his forehead colliding with his friend’s face at an ungodly speed. Bruce saw blood shoot from beneath the face slit of the poor guy’s balaclava, and douse his eyelids as he collapsed.

With one left, Bruce brought his hands up again. He blocked a left from the remaining Squire and went for a right with the same arm that was a little too slow. The Squire made him pay for it with a right that grazed Bruce’s cheekbone.

Just then, Selina popped up behind the Squire, grabbed him by his left shoulder, and spun him around.

She used her right foot to land quick, light kicks at both of his insteps, spreading his legs. And with one violent motion, she rebounded her foot right into the side of his left knee. Bruce could hear the ugly crunch of dislocation, and saw the Squire’s whole left leg cave inward like an inverted checkmark.

The Squire shrieked, and Selina wrapped her arm around the guy’s neck in an inverted headlock. She brought both legs up and let gravity and pain send the fellow’s face downward to eat marble.

Selina sprung back to her feet, grabbed the collar of Bruce’s white dress shirt, and kissed him full on the mouth.

Once she was done, Bruce noticed sizeable holes in his photographic memory.

“I missed this,” she said, beaming.

So had he, come to think of it.

* * *

Harper didn’t think Barbara had it in her.

But Barbara had.

She grabbed the neck of the music room cello as though it was fucking Excaliber, brought it up over her head, and brought it down on the Squire that was moving in on her.

Twenty-five pounds of weight and God knows how many pounds of Barbara’s own pressure per square inch rent the cello into sawdust, and the head of the Squire upon whom she vented her fury got sent to the thin green carpet below.

That meant there were three left.

But this music room was tiny. This had to end quickly, or the end product was going to look like it came from a meat grinder.

Harper slid across the left grand piano as though it were a cop car in the intro to one of your crappier early nineties network police dramas. She sent her right foot into the pelvis of the one on the left, knocking him into the wall. She engaged the middle one left standing by driving an elbow into his ribs.

Which meant the gentleman on the right had to deal with the instrument-swinging fury of one Barbara Gordon.

The middle one rocked Harper in the face, and she felt her back wrap around the edge of the piano. Pain exploded, and she dropped to her knees. The one on the left had come back, and raised his foot to stomp on her neck.

Which wasn’t the best idea for the gentlemen to have, as she sent a hard right into his crotch.

Harper thought she would be more proud of this as the day went on. Right now, she just felt bad for the guy.

She sent another elbow into the middle one to create space. Space created, she popped back up, opened the lid of the piano, slid the head of the Squire still clutching his balls into the innards of the piano, and slammed the lid.

The result was a loud **BONNNNNG-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G! **that drowned out everything else. And the Squire slid to the floor in need of medical attention.

Harper squared up for the one in the middle’s re-advance, and and brought right and left crosses upon his masked face before he had time to get one shot off. She drove a shoe into his knee, which unmanned him. She folded her hands and drove an upward double-ax-handle into the off-button that was his chin. His head jacked back before he practically melted into the carpet.

She looked over and saw that the last Squire was holding her own against Barbara. He blocked some shots with upraised forearms, before she ate a lunge-kick in the stomach that knocked her against the wall. She bounced back with momentum, only to get a punch that landed flush to her right cheekbone for her trouble. Barbara staggered, reached out for the wall, but she did not go down.

Harper reached over to grab him by the shoulder, but he seemed to expect that. He spun around and she ate an elbow in the left side of her face. She staggered back and hit the wall. She bounced back like Barbara did, only to see that the last Squire had a knife.

It was raised.

And Harper wasn’t going to be fast enough to dodge it, and she had doubts about her strength to block it.

She angled to her side, hoping she’d catch the blade in the thigh, when…

**BOOM!**

...the last Squire flew a good five feet, and didn’t move once he hit the floor.

Her ears were ringing.

She and Barbara turned to the doorway.

There was Cullen.

And he was holding a shotgun.

He pumped it, and said “‘Sup?”

“You shot him,” Harper said, barely able to hear her own voice.

“Yeah,” Cullen said. “I did.”

_“You_ _shot him!” _Barbara yelled.

“Oh, quit pissing yourself, Gordon. It’s loaded with sonic flechettes. He’s gonna be out for a while, but otherwise he’s gonna be fine. I’m not actually gonna tote a live firearm around Wayne Manor. That’d be like flying an RC plane around a Buddy Holly memorial.”

“Where did you even _get _that fucking thing?” Harper asked.

Cullen smiled, and looked down at his baby. “Alfred left it to me in his will… I named him Chad.”

Barbara blinked. Harper saw her eyes roll a little. “You… named it…”

Harper saw Barbara absent-mindedly pick at the small cut that had opened up on her cheekbone.

She wavered on the spot. “I, um… I don’t…”

And Harper felt her heart stop as she saw Barbara Gordon collapse.

* * *

Six Squires bulldozed through the billiard room door, and set their sights on Tim Drake.

What these six fellows did not know was that Violet Paige had been standing just off the side of the doorway as they barged in.

And they may have only been dimly aware of the fact that Violet was strong enough to take the lower right billiard table in this billiard room… and throw it at them.

Which is exactly what Violet did. She grabbed the southern end along the bottom, and heaved it along the floor toward the advancing Squires. Pool balls spilled from the shallow leather pockets, and the legs of the billiard table made a deafening **SKREEEEEEEEE!** as it skidded across the floor.

Tim noticed that the one at the head of the pack seemed to see it coming.

“L--”

That was as far as he got.

It wasn’t a strike. If Violet wanted to chuck a second pool table at them, she might have picked up the spare.

The table collided with five of the Squires, sideswiping them and slamming them against the wall so hard that they left imprints in the plaster.

The last Squire looked at his five unconscious cohorts stuck between a wall and a massive oak gaming apparatus, before he lazily looked at Violet.

_“Fuuuuuuuuuck,” _he said.

At which Violet leaned back against the wall next to the door, and said “You can have the last one. I don’t want to be greedy.”

The last Squire turned to Tim.

And Tim reached into the pocket of his jacket. He removed a steel cylinder about two inches long.

He hit the catch mechanism on the side, and…

_FWIKT!_

..that cylinder extended to a five foot bo staff.

“Come on,” Tim said to the last Squire. “Don’t be shy.”

The last Squire stepped to.

Tim twirled his staff above his head in a flourish, and readied for a slash that the final Squire dodged. But this gave Tim room for an elbow.

The last Squire popped him in the face before he could pull it off.

He still trained regularly, but he hadn’t been in a fight in a while.

Violet yelled out _“Booooooo! You suck!”_

Tim felt a small trickle of blood fall down his cheek, before he readied himself and began his second advance.

He began with a broad mid-thrust that the Squire ducked. This is what Tim had been banking on. He raised his foot and brought it down on the side of the Squire’s face. It knocked him on his back, and Tim could see his legs tense as he tried to get up.

In the spirit of the room in which he fought, Tim lined up a behind-the-back trick shot that resulted in the business end of his staff jabbing the last Squire in the hollow of his throat.

Any urge that the man had toward getting back to his feet was immediately halted by the coughing and sputtering fit that ensued. He clutched his throat and tried to breathe.

Tim leapt, and brought the staff down in a savage overhand stroke on the bridge of the Squire’s nose. He was out cold.

“I give you an eight,” Violet said. “No… Wait… Seven-point-five.”

Tim was about to tell her Gee Thanks, when the world got blurry.

This was not the first time that he’d been dropped with a sedative. In fact, Tim thought this might have been one that one of the members of the Victim Syndicate dosed him with back in the day.

He did the math quickly. The cut on his cheek plus the general wooziness equaled a sedative that acted through the bloodstream.

It worked quick, too.

Because before he could open his mouth to tell Violet this, some prankster turned out the lights on planet Earth, and the floor of the billiard room punched him in the face.

And he heard Violet’s echoing voice coming from above him as though he were at the bottom of a deep well.

_“Tim? TIM?”_

* * *

Stephanie Brown came to the conclusion that whenever she was around Cassandra Wayne, both of their respective IQs dropped to sub-shoe size numbers. It was like that when they were eighteen, and it was like that now.

She came to this conclusion as she and Cassandra picked themselves up from on top of the four Squires that they had knocked from their grapple lines, facilitating a fifteen foot plummet.

The things she did with this girl. It was like back in the day, when she signed up for every-other-day ass-kickings from Cass during training sessions. To be fair to herself, Stephanie reckoned that that was the only thing for a teenage superhero deeply in love from the back of a closet to do. How the hell else was she going to get the girl of her dreams to step on her, and not have it be weird?

She rolled over atop one of the groaning Squires, and looked at Cass. She was gingerly touching a small cut she got on the back of her neck, but otherwise she was fine.

Cassandra and Stephanie got to their feet. The closest of Cassandra’s two Squires got to his as well.

She unloaded a flurry of shots into the guy’s body armor that made him crumple, before she reared back and cracked her own forehead against his. He did a sack-of-potatoes impression to an audience of _the motherfucking floor, _before Cassandra stood over him, pointed at him… and looked directly at Stephanie.

The body language said everything.

_Top that._

Stephanie picked up the nearest of her two Squires. He tried to throw a shot as he rose, but Stephanie ducked it. She rocked his covered face with a left uppercut, before she grabbed his left arm, and delivered a short-arm shiver to his clavicle that knocked him off his feet. He banged the back of his head on a nearby oak reading table.

She looked at Cassandra… and pointed down.

Cassandra smiled.

She picked up her second Squire. The poor bastard tried to deliver a roundhouse kick that was going to haunt him for the rest of his life, for Cassandra caught it with one arm, and used her free hand to wind up and punch his thigh.

Stephanie heard his femur snap.

The second Squire howled, and tried to fall to the floor, but Cassandra would not let him. She hugged him tightly around the waist with both arms, and arched back, heaving him over her head in a belly-to-belly suplex.

His lower back bounced off of the edge of the oak table, before he landed funny on the left side of his face.

Cassandra got to her feet, looked at Stephanie… and pointed down.

Stephanie nodded.

She picked up her second Squire by the collar. She reared back her right hand, clenched her fist, and paused.

Then she unleashed a series of hard and blinding finger jabs all over his upper torso. They had to be hard to compensate for the body armor, but she managed.

She knew she had managed because the Squire locked up, rigid, unable to move or even blink.

Stephanie just put her hand to the side of her head and gently _pressed _him to the floor. She looked at Cassandra, and smiled.

Cassandra laughed. _“You learned the One Hour Photo!”_

Stephanie, smiling, pressed her forearm to her waist and bowed low.

As she came back up, she heard Cassandra yell “LOOK OUT!”

Her first Squire had apparently come to, and punched her in the back of the head.

She started forward, stumbling. She foolishly gave in to the urge to turn around in midair, but that just meant her landing was going to be ungainly.

Cassandra caught her.

She held her that way for a moment. As though she had just dipped Stephanie during a dance.

Steph looked up at her, her black hair hanging down, her brown eyes two inviting, warm wells, the ghost of the smile from the fight still on her face.

A few minutes before, Stephanie had told her all of the reasons why she and Cassandra should be grown-ups about their current station in life. Compromise. One night of torrid passion as a gateway to a lifetime of platonic best friendship.

But now, Stephanie’s reasons seemed… way over _there _somewhere. Like a remote control left on a living room table, an object that Stephanie was too lazy and too comfortable to retrieve.

And Cassandra… seemed to be staring at her the same way.

Stephanie was briefly contemplating the aesthetic virtues of Cassandra Wayne’s lips when one of the Squires punched Cassandra in the face. The master martial artist had taken her eye off the ball, and paid for it. And because she had been holding Stephanie, they both fell.

As Stephanie was dragged up by the Squire, she noticed that Cassandra was gently pawing at a small cut on her cheek.

Stephanie ate a punch to the face. She drove her bicep into his chin, and then an elbow into the mush before he went down again.

She ran her finger along a small scratch that the Squire had given her on the left side of her nose, before she turned to look at Cassandra, who was on her feet again.

Stephanie took a step toward her… but the room got all swimmy.

Even in her impaired state, she could see Cassandra’s eyes roll back in her head.

_Sedatives. Great._

Cassandra fell to the floor first.

Stephanie fell on top of her.

* * *

_“Kneel before Chad, you incel fucks!”_

**BOOM!**

Cullen blasted at least one goon into unconsciousness.

Barbara Gordon couldn’t open her eyes, so she couldn’t tell precisely how many.

Though Barbara Gordon was using just sheer will to fight off the sedatives that she’d been dosed with, she could not move a single muscle.

Harper Row was propping her up, dragging her along the side of the second floor hallway of the East Wing. Barbara Gordon was sixteen years removed from needing a wheelchair to get around. She didn’t like other people’s help with her mobility then, and she sure as shit did not appreciate it now.

“Where are we going?” Harper asked.

Which was something Barbara wanted to know, but could not ask.

“The garage,” Cullen said. “We’re getting in a car and getting out of here.”

“Why can’t we go to the Batcave?”

“Because that’s where they came from,” Cullen said.

Silence before Barbara heard Harper say _“Jesus.”_

Barbara had to wonder how the Arkham Knight’s men could have gotten in from Batcave South. Her mind immediately went to one possibility. It was the only one that made sense… and it was the worst thing she could think of.

She could hear heavy footsteps coming from around a corner.

A lot of them.

“Welp,” Cullen said, “looks like I’m up again.”

Barbara heard the rack of the shotgun…

...and the click of an empty firearm.

“Ugh,” Cullen said. “I knew I forgot something.”

Barbara felt herself fall to the floor. Harper had let go of her.

She heard the Rows try to fight them off.

And she heard them loudly and painfully fail.

Then, and only then, did she fall into the darkness waiting for her.

* * *

Bruce Wayne was used to sedatives. He’d tried most of the conventional ones on himself during his training to become Batman.

But Selina was not used to sedatives in the slightest, and so she was out cold on the floor. Through his hazy vision, Bruce could see a small puddle of drool collecting on the marble floor near her mouth.

His head hurt from the post-sedative blows that the Squires had rained down upon him but they eventually stopped. Even clinging to his consciousness by the fingernails, he was worried that they’d start defacing the art in their frustration, but they just sat down, caught their breath and collected themselves.

A fuzzy headache and cotton-mouth. Bruce reckoned that the sedative they used had to have been an Ecktebben plant extract, delivered through some kind of lacing apparatus on their gloves. Fast acting, but not particularly long-lasting. It must have been cut with some cheap chemicals. It explained how he couldn’t power through it. It also explained the soreness in his joints.

It just screamed _"black market."_

Apparently Ra’s didn’t bring his chemists with him.

A couple of minutes rolled by, until Bruce heard commotion in the hallway. Stomping feet. Loud punches. Screaming. And they kept getting closer.

Three Squires flew past the doorway of the art gallery. And visible in the hall was Violet Paige.

_Of course. She has super strength. They’re going to need a lot more sedatives to put her down._

Her white tank top and blue jeans were covered in blood. Bruce did not assume that all of it was hers.

One of the Squire’s she has just thrown had gotten up and decided to press the issue. He laid into her with a right hook, and Violet didn't even give him the satisfaction of rolling with it. She just tanked it, and glared at him.

Violet picked the Squire up by his right wrist and lifted him off the ground. Bruce noticed she strained as she did it. The sedatives may not have dropped her yet, but they did weaken her.

A second passed before Bruce could hear screaming and cracking. All Violet had to do was squeeze a little, and she destroyed the Squire’s wrist.

She dropped him, and the Squire cradled his hand. As he was doing so, Violet unloaded a right to the side of his head. He twisted, plopped, and entered dreamland sitting cross-legged.

Violet looked up and further into the hallway at something or someone that was beyond the humble aspect ratio of the art gallery doorway.

_“You,” _Violet said. “I got a bone to pick with you, _skank.”_

She took a deep breath.

She brought back her right fist.

And a hand clad in blue armor reached in and grabbed her by the throat before she could do anything with it. 

The Arkham Knight lifted Violet Paige up into the air by her throat with her left hand. Were her face not a crimson mask, Bruce would have guessed that Violet was turning red. Her hands clutched at the Arkham Knight’s arm with utter futility.

But as the seconds went on, those fingers finally slipped, and Violet Paige just hung there, limp.

It wasn’t enough to kill her. It was just enough to put her down.

The Arkham Knight let go of Violet, and all six feet of her landed on the hallway carpet in a bloody heap.

From there, the Arkham Knight strode into the art gallery, looking at her Squires and perusing the work on the walls and on the podiums as though she owned it all.

Until finally she stood above the motionless Bruce.

“You’re still awake,” The Arkham Knight said. “Just barely.

She took a Glock out of the holster on her right hip, pointed it at the wall, and fired without looking.

**BANG! BANG!**

The Arkham Knight had fired at the floor-to-ceiling portrait of Thomas and Martha Wayne that Bruce and Selina had been staring at before the invasion.

One bullet apiece hit the painted likenesses of Bruce’s mother and father right between their eyes.

“Look at that,” the Arkham Knight said. “It happened again.”

Bruce Wayne felt rage boil within him as the world went away.

* * *

“Hey… Mister Wayne… Wake up!”

His eyes fluttered open.

A teenage girl with a short mess of red hair on her head was kneeling next to him.

“Hi,” she said. “Um… I’m Carrie Kelley. The new Robin. I’ve spent so much time in your house, but we haven’t actually met. Can you move?”

Bruce’s joints creaked as he got into a sitting position on the marble floor.

Jason had taken Carrie and Aaliyah to the movies. They hadn’t been here for this.

Selina and Violet were sitting against the far wall. Aaliyah had brought them each glasses of water. And Jason was bringing in a very pained-looking Cullen Row.

Carrie fidgeted next to Bruce. “Jason told me that you’d like me because I have no idea who someone called _‘The Joker’ _is.”

This tiny shred of information cut through the fog in Bruce’s head like a meat cleaver through wet brie.

“You don’t know who The Joker is?”

Carrie shook her head. “I have a feeling it’s one of those things I’m better off not knowing about.”

* * *

The Squires were all gone. They’d torn up the study during their entrance and their exit.

Bruce walked past the damaged grandfather clock that hid the elevator into the Batcave.

Cassandra and Tim joined him, and all three went below ground.

He wondered if he should ask the two of them if they were okay.

He decided against it.

The Batcave was surprisingly unmolested, save for the large walls over on the left that stretched from the cave’s concrete base to the hanging stalactites above.

Those walls were filled with lockers, and those lockers were filled with evidence. Said lockers had been spilled all about the concrete floor.

Each article of evidence had tracking gel. So Bruce’s first stop had to be the Batcomputer to see what, if anything, was missing.

As he walked to the keyboard, Bruce tried to figure out how this had happened. There was a water entrance that led to the Gotham River for the Batboat, a path that led to the holographic doors that let the Batwing in and out, and the holographic entrance for the Batmobile a half a mile away.

Each needed clearance codes in order to access. They were under infinite layers of encryption that both Tim Drake and Barbara Gordon had designed in tandem. They were unhackable.

The only way the Arkham Knight could have gotten in was if she had the codes already.

And that… was something he’d need to think about when he had all of his faculties.

_But it makes sense that the Arkham Knight didn’t kill any of us, _Bruce thought. _ If someone sold us out, and they worked anonymously, then she couldn’t risk killing her only source of inside information._

He brought up the evidence database on the Batcomputer, and ran a scan.

“Is there anything missing?” Tim asked.

“Still scanning,” Bruce said.

All articles of evidence were present and accounted for within the perimeter of the Batcave…

...except for two.

And once Bruce saw which two they were, his heart sank.

“What is it?” Cassandra asked from behind him.

“Two lots are missing,” Bruce said. “Lot Two-Twenty-One, and Lot One-Zero-Three-Five. A Superman Signal Watch… and the canister of Kryptonite gas.”

He turned around.

Cassandra’s mouth was hanging open. She was apparently unable to speak.

Tim would have to speak for her.

“Conner,” Tim said. “The Arkham Knight is going after Conner…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, gang. Did you know that pumping out twelve thousand words a week for a year and a half is exhausting? It is! I imagine doctors would tell you so.
> 
> I'll be back on Monday the 24th to resolve this cliffhanger.


	24. But Ordinary's Just Not Good Enough Today

**Chapter 24: But Ordinary’s Just Not Good Enough Today**

A STAR Labs armored truck made its way across the Gillian P. Loeb Memorial Bridge connecting the mainland to Bleake Island, its final destination being the Scientific and Technological Advance Research Laboratories facility in the old factory district.

STAR Labs had been founded by scientist Garrison Slate some fifty years ago now, and had enough locations worldwide to make it the McDonald's of scientific research. Though they had to pare their weapons development back quite a bit in the recent decades due to public outcry from the superhero community, and potential legislation by do-gooder American senators.

_Didn’t mean they couldn’t develop chemicals, though!_

The cargo in this particular armored truck was something called a _“chemical amplification reagent.” _ Reggie Tatsumoto, the man driving the truck, didn’t know what the hell that even was. And he’d bet that the man riding shotgun with him today on this haul from Metropolis, one James KIymer, didn’t know either. To Reggie, it just looked like clear goop in three see-through barrels the size of mini-kegs.

“So,” James said as he wiped some doughnut powder off of his black uniform tie, “I look up while I’m filling my tank, eating a gas station hot dog, and I see this woman fly overhead.”

“Wonder Woman?” Reggie asked.

James shook his head. “Huh-uh. Wonder _Girl.”_

“Wonder _Girl?”_

“Yeah.”

“Which Wonder Girl?”

“Huh?”

“Which Wonder Girl?” Reggie asked. “There were two of them. The brunette came first, then came the blonde.”

“The blonde,” said James.

“And that’s the only superhero you’ve ever seen up close?”

“Lived in Gateway City all my life. That’s the only one. How ‘bout you?”

“I seen a couple,” Reggie said. “I live in Metropolis so it’s kinda hard not to. I saw Supergirl fight that Sea Daddy character. Superwoman swung by when the Sunshine Patriot and the Summer Soldier tried to blow up that African-American History Museum. Smacked the piss out of ‘em. They were covered in swastikas and shit, so _that _felt good to watch. And, uh… And then there’s Superman.”

James looked at him, detecting the hesitation in the sentence. “What about him?”

Reggie took his hand off the wheel to scratch his nose. “Did, uh… Did you hear that internet theory about there being two Supermen? Super _mans? _Super _men?”_

“There’s an internet theory about there being more than one Superman?”

“Yeah,” Reggie said. “I mean, I seen him up close a few times. Y’know, flyovers, he was at the opening of that children’s hospital my wife works at. And, uh… did he get _younger _to you?”

“I haven’t paid attention. _You’re _the one who lives in Metropolis.”

“I know,” Reggie said, “but back in the day, Superman was Superman. Then I see him on the news and it’s almost as though he’s this eighteen year old kid, right? And for the past fifteen years, he hasn’t ag--”

**BOOM!**

The readout on the dashboard told Reggie all four tires on the armored truck had been blown out. But by the time he saw this, the truck was already mid-roll.

If one were to ask Reggie Tatsumoto how many times the STAR Labs truck rolled, he would not have been able to say. All he would have told you was that when it finally stopped on the patch of grass near the Bleake Island off ramp, it landed right side up.

He also would have said that he had a splitting headache, and he felt nauseous.

He looked to his right to see James in the passenger’s seat, the red hair of his combover astray and a thin rope of drool extending from his mouth to his gray uniform shirt. He was unconscious, his chin resting on his sternum.

Reggie reached over and nudged James’ shoulder. “James… Buddy… Wake up.”

Thankfully, James’ eyes fluttered open. He slowly raised his head, and seemed to look beyond Reggie in the driver’s seat.

“Oh, shit…” he said.

Reggie followed his gaze out the driver’s side window.

Three men were standing outside the door in black body armor and black balaclavas.

Reggie’s hand immediately hit the security protocol on the dashboard. It was standard on STAR Labs vehicles. It sealed the door and sent out an automated distress call to 911, along with the truck’s tracking code.

The man in the middle of the three, the tallest one, just folded his arms.

“I’ll spoil it for you,” he said. “Your call didn’t go out. As for the door? Well… we brought these new plasma cutters with us? Top of the line, work better than blowtorches. Problem being, though, they can heat up a room real fast. Melt flesh off bone, if some flesh was in the vicinity.”

The man leaned into the window. If Reggie had to guess, under that balaclava, the dude was smiling.

“So do yourself a favor. Open the back of the truck… and get the fuck out here.”

* * *

The Batmobile was cloaked, weaving through the traffic of the outer mainland silent and unseen.

Being as the cloak had been installed after his time as Robin, this was Tim Drake’s first time in the passenger’s seat during a quiet, see-through run.

And he had never ridden shotgun when Black Bat was behind the controls.

She was all tension, snaking the Batmobile around motorcycles and in front of SUVs as the concrete and glass canyons of Gotham City passed by in a blur. He had a feeling that when the masked Cassandra Wayne took her hands from the controls, deep grooves where her fingers had squeezed into the rubber would be present. 

Which wasn’t to say that Tim himself was collected at the moment.

He was the man nothing got to, but this got to him. A crazy woman was going to try and kill his best friend. And this best friend was the other half of the longest relationship that the masked woman in the driver’s seat had ever been in.

Tim reached into the pockets of his jacket. In his right hand he had his collapsible bo staff, and in his left, he held a pair of sunglasses, which he proceeded to put on.

Cassandra had a superhero identity to fall back on. Tim didn't, and in fact had not had one in almost fourteen years. This was as incognito as he could get at present.

Heart hammering in his chest, Tim asked Black Bat a question.

“Can this thing go any faster?”

* * *

Reggie Tatsumoto was dropped to his knees in the grass next to James Klymer. They both had their hands in the air.

In addition to the three men in black, there were an additional three who had arrived in a black Armored Personnel Carrier. Reggie didn’t know military from milkshakes, but he would be good and thrice damned if the Army didn’t have rides like those.

The other three had loaded the tire spikes with which they blew the tires of the STAR Labs truck into the back of the APC, followed then by the mini-kegs of chemical amplification reagent, whatever the fuck that was.

Once that was done, they were off, and Reggie and James were left to their captors.

Their apparent leader yanked both of Reggie’s hands behind his back. He felt something being strapped around his wrist. Like a watch.

“Brother,” Reggie said. “Just let us go. You got what you wanted.”

“No,” the leader in black said. “We didn’t. Not yet.”

A bolt of agony shot up Reggie’s left arm as the leader bent his thumb back, viciously breaking it.

Reggie screamed…

* * *

...and Conner Kent heard it.

He was over at Lupe’s Taco Hut on Miagani Island, just across the street from the Kino Theatre on Weston Boulevard. He opted to eat his two lime chicken tacos and his plate of shrimp nachos out on the open outdoor patio, gray sky and fog be damned. If it were going to rain, he’d have heard it in the atmosphere.

Conner had two fingers around a tortilla chip heavily loaded with oily melted cheese and a single miniature shrimp when he heard the scream.

But this was Gotham City. This was not his town, and if help was needed, he’d have been asked. It was like going against the natural instinct to breathe, but Gotham was well-protected, and whoever was in danger would be out of danger soon enough.

Underneath the scream, however, he heard the beeping.

Conner Kent was well-acquainted with this beeping. This was the beeping of a Superman Signal Watch, attuned at a frequency that only Kryptonians could hear without special equipment. Only a precious few had them, most notable among them current _Daily Planet _Editor-in-Chief Jimmy Olsen.

So Conner heard the beeping, put his chip back down on the plate, and sighed.

It was one thing to stay on the sidelines in a city of superheroes whose pride wouldn’t allow him to interfere. It was an entirely different thing to ignore the telltale beeping of a Superman Signal Watch.

He was needed for one specific thing. That’s all there was to it.

Conner looked around the open patio, weighing his options. He could eat his food with Super Speed. It would only take a second. But two many wandering eyes and open ears.

He sighed yet again, got his wallet out of his suit jacket, and fished out two twenties. He left them on the table, got up from his woefully uneaten food, and walked from the patio to the adjoining alley.

Conner’s mind skirted around the thought…

_Fuck this town._

...before it retreated.

Superman, after all, was not supposed to swear. He failed on occasion, but he always tried.

Safely secured in the darkness of the alley, Conner touched the holographic projector on the back of his head, hidden by thick, black hair. A good fifteen years instantly drained from his face, leaving behind the appearance of a handsome young man in his late teens. An appearance he had had all his life, ever since he was grown by Lex Luthor and Cadmus inside of a laboratory.

With that done, Conner took off his glasses and opened his gray button-down shirt, revealing the big red S that meant hope to billions.

* * *

The Arkham Knight stood atop the old Iroquois Plastics building on Bleake Island, the tallest structure on said island that was not a smokestack.

It was roughly half a mile from where the STAR Labs truck had rolled, and where her men had taken the chemical amplification reagent, and were now holding the truck’s stewards hostage.

And the Arkham Knight was scanning the sky, looking for even the slightest trace of red and blue.

She had taken the Superman Signal Watch and the canister of Kryptonite gas from the Batcave. While she had given the watch to her men, she had kept the canister of gas for herself.

For, on this very rooftop, she had loaded the canister into a device that she had picked up during her test raids of weapons development facilities with her men. They had trained together, after all, and what better way to reward them than with spiffy new toys with which to play?

This particular device was called a _“concentration matrix,” _and she got it from raiding a LexCorp lab over in Central City. It could harness any base chemical onto light, and send it out as a coherent beam.

The Arkham Knight’s mystery caller told her that using the Kryptonite gas in its current form may not be the best way for the weapon to be utilized, for _gassing _Superman meant _confining _Superman, and there were no earthly means with which to do so, at least not with the current resources that the Arkham Knight and Ra’s al Ghul had at hand. But maybe she could modify it a little?

Turns out, the Arkham Knight could.

For next to her was the concentration matrix, which could turn the Kryptonite gas into a Kryptonite laser beam.

The metal canister of gas, roughly the size of a can of paint, fit snugly into the chamber of the concentration matrix, which was about the size of a paint mixer. It was aimed skyward.

As were her eyes.

The Arkham Knight’s helmet had magnification and motion detection. Moreover, it was interfaced with the concentration matrix. All she had to do to fire it was press a button on her gauntlet. As soon as he showed himself, he was at her mercy.

Beneath her helmet, Astrid Arkham smiled. She tried to think of a bigger boost to one’s self-esteem than killing Superman, and such a possibility quite simply eluded her.

* * *

Tim watched the minor spectacle of Black Bat tapping on the Batmobile’s controls with her gloved index finger…

_Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap._

...while his heart hammered in his chest.

She was maneuvering the Batmobile down alleys and side streets as fast as she could on the way to the signal from the watch, which she had picked up on the onboard computer. It was a zigging and zagging path, but they couldn’t have an invisible war machine stop at traffic lights or use turn signals.

Black Bat spared him a glance.

“You’re nervous,” she said.

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are.”

“How can you tell?”

Black Bat looked at him again, only it was a moment longer. Long enough for Cassandra’s withering derision to seep through the mask and permeate his personal space like a particularly eggy fart.

“I’m breaking about a hundred and fifty traffic laws to get to that signal,” Black Bat said. “We’ll get there.”

“You know the traffic laws?”

“Back to front.”

“And you still can’t drive a normal car?”

“Normal cars don’t have radar, sonar, or cloaking devices,” Black Bat said. “And you make small talk when you’re nervous.”

Tim sighed, and rubbed his face, working the index fingers of both hands good and deep into his tear ducts until he saw stars.

The pit in his stomach seemed to get big enough to the extent that he had its own gravitational pull. He could swear he could feel his ribs being pulled downward into the antimatter vortex, down there with his breakfast and all the gum he had swallowed since he was a child, or so his mother would have had him believe.

“I don’t suppose it would help if I screamed in here to try and warn him?” Tim asked. “He’s Superman. He’ll hear me.”

“No,” Black Bat said. “He won’t. This car has the same sound blanketing system as Batcave South. I’d say you could stick your head out the window, but the windows don’t roll down. And even if they could, we’re invisible right now, so it wouldn’t be the wisest thing you could do.”

“And we can’t get out and stop?”

“Do you mean slow ourselves down and increase the likelihood of something horrible happening?” Black Bat asked, an edge gathering steam in her deep voice. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

He sighed yet again.

Tim wanted to have faith in Cassandra.

But it was hard.

He opted instead for deflection.

“If you want to turn good intentions into an awful problem,” Tim said, “nine out of ten doctors recommend Bruce Wayne’s Paranoia.”

* * *

Superman still heard the screaming. He still heard the Signal Watch. But he also heard the work-a-day folks of Bleake Island oohing and ahhing as he sailed through the air hundreds of feet above them.

His red cape fluttering behind him, Superman wasn’t going as fast as he could, and there was a reason for that.

Over the past three years or so, the supervillain community had developed a kind of underground makeshift method of social networking with which they warned each other as to which superhero was in which town at any given minute. Initially, the Justice League and affiliated individuals and entities had brainstorming sessions as to how they could shut this system down. But as the days and weeks went on, they noticed something.

With an early warning system in place, sometimes these criminals would stop what they were doing and run away.

Because if someone was robbing a liquor store, and they heard Superman was in town, there was a realistic possibility that said person would put the money down, drop the gun, and attempt to vanish. A hundred and fifty bucks was not a cover charge for going toe-to-toe with the Man of Steel.

So Superman tried to keep a reasonable pace, but took his time, listening for the unholstering of a firearm coming from the direction of the beeping of the signal watch. If he heard that, then he’d make mincemeat of the sound barrier trying to get there.

But for now, Superman let Gotham see him…. And he let Gotham get the word out.

* * *

**SNAP!**

And Reggie screamed again.

The leader of the men in black had snapped his pinkie, then his ring finger, and then his middle finger. He felt the skin and small hairs of the first joint of that middle finger gently touching the back of his hand, bent in a way in which he knew it was not supposed to bend. This only made him more nauseous.

Once he screamed his lungs out, the leader felt the urge to speak.

“So,” he said, “where you from, little man?”

“M-M-M-Metropolis,” Reggie said, stuttering in agony.

“Metropolis,” the leader said, oily sarcasm dripping off of all four syllables. “See, unlike my two friends here, I am a not-so-proud Gotham City native.”

Reggie could hear the sound of boots shifting in the grass, and breathing in his right ear. The leader had stooped down to his level.

“See, when I was a kid, I was the world’s biggest Gotham City Knights fan. Pennants, caps, posters on the wall. I begged my dad for an Ivan Ross jersey. Number 35, right on my back, and he got it for me.”

The breath the leader took blew out Reggie’s hearing for a second, before he continued speaking.

“I was watching Game Seven of the World Series with my dad on TV. Gotham was finally gonna win one for the first time. I hoped… I _hoped _it would happen. It got to the eighth inning and the signal cuts out. I hear the rumble throughout my apartment building, and all the glass breaks. Some asshole blew up the stadium, the blocks around it, killing about seventy thousand people. Game Seven. Motherfucker…”

The leader took a deep breath. As he let it out, Reggie could hear the shudder it held.

“You’re gonna die today, little man,” the leader said. “But I need you to hope. I need you to _hope _it doesn’t happen.”

It took all of Reggie’s strength to keep himself from puking. If he was going to die, he was not going to die in a pool of his own vomit. He was terrified, but even in the midst of overwhelming fear, he still had some pride. It was recognizable, and Reggie knew that it was the only thing he could cling to.

But as he swallowed, he saw something flutter in the sky about a half of a mile off. The colors popped against the gray, and Reggie knew who it was.

Reggie Tatsumoto didn’t need hope.

He had Superman.

* * *

The Arkham Knight saw him as well.

She kept Superman within the field of her helmet’s vision, and let the VI targeting system in her armor do the work. It compensated for gradients in wind, velocity, flight pattern, and vector.

And it was hooked up to the concentration matrix.

She heard the device whir to life, the gentle mechanical keening of its business end slowly moving… aimed at Superman, above the water of Gotham Sound.

The Arkham Knight paused, savoring the moment. What she was about to do was going to set the world on fire, and she wanted to commit as much to memory as possible. So that one day, were someone to ask her what it felt like to kill Superman, then she would have been able to testify to the sensation honestly.

And finally, the Arkham Knight was satisfied.

She said…

_“Bang.”_

...and pressed the button on her gauntlet.

Her helmet’s magnification protocols were in place, so she could see, with great detail, the green beam hit the Man of Steel in that big S on his chest, see him veer off-pattern, and gradually go limp in his descent.

_How did it feel to kill Superman, Astrid?_

_Well, it felt great, if we’re being honest._

* * *

“Whoa,” Black Bat said.

Tim looked at her. “What is it?”

“I just got a wicked energy signature coming out of Bleake Island.”

Tim’s brow instantly started sporting a layer of sweat. He forgot to blink, and he forgot to breathe.

“Tim,” Black Bat said, nerves creeping into her voice. _“Something _just went off.”

* * *

At the moment he saw the green beam his the blue and red dot on the skyline that was Superman, his vision blurred. His mind had seen it, instantly rejected it, and tried to shut his eyes down to reboot from the malfunction.

The beam was green.

Kryptonite was green.

Reggie Tatsumoto did not need a degree to figure this one out.

He saw Superman’s flight began to zig, and he saw him slowly fall, and the full weight and history of being ringside for such a transformative event made him feel as though his heart was being crushed. And the only word that would escape his lips was:

_“No…”_

“‘Fraid so,” the leader behind him said. “All that hope you had that Superman would come and save you, and it did you just as much good as it did this town.”

Reggie heard the slide of a pistol being yanked back, and he closed his eyes.

“Welcome to Gotham City,” the leader said, and Reggie felt the barrel of a gun bore into the back of his skull.

**BOOOOOOOOM!**

Reggie opened his eyes.

It should be stated plainly at this juncture that both Reggie Tatsumoto and James Klymer ultimately survived their encounter with the Arkham Knight’s Squires in Gotham City. And the following Sunday, once he was safely back home in Metropolis, he attended Sunday Mass at Saint Patrick’s Catholic Church for the first time since his father had last dragged him to the establishment when he was fifteen.

For while Reggie Tatsumoto had his eyes closed, not knowing what else to do, he powered through the recesses of his brain for last second solutions before finally calling upon God.

And when he opened his eyes… _the fucking Batmobile appeared out of nowhere!_

* * *

The Batmobile decloaked.

“EJECT!” Black Bat yelled. “NOW!”

The roof of the Batmobile slid back, and both Black Bat and Tim Drake were launched into the air by the Batmobile’s ejector seat mechanisms.

Tim had done this hundreds of times in his late teens. Muscle memory took over. He unleashed his bo staff and hit the pose as he and Black Bat landed in front of the three Squires holding the two STAR Labs workers hostage.

As the two drivers scurried away, Black Bat pointed up. Tim’s eyes followed her finger.

A blue and red speck was moving down, down, down to the cloudy waters of the Atlantic off the coast of the mainland.

Superman fell from the sky that had, until now, held him up lovingly, and he impacted with the ocean waters below. Conner Kent’s body was so far away that Tim could not hear the splash.

Then the eyes of Tim Drake and Black Bat slowly fell back earthward, toward the three men who were, at the very least, partly responsible for this calamity.

Like a quick-draw artist, Black Bat unsheathed a Batarang apiece from either side of her yellow utility belt and flung them at the two Squires on either side. They both got hit right between the eyes, and fell backward.

Which left only the one in the middle for Tim.

As Black Bat dealt with the other two, Tim advanced on the lone Squire. The corners of Tim’s vision had begun to redden. He could hear his insistent pulse in his temples like the crashing of waves.

The Squire got his pistol out of his holster.

Tim, in the moment, found that the most appropriate way to deal with this situation was the abandonment of all pretense towards fanciness. 

He choked up on one end of his bo staff with both hands, and hit a screaming line drive on the Squire’s face that sent both him and the pistol flying.

At which point, Tim dropped his staff. His bare hands screamed for the blood of his best friend’s murderer.

He bent down and grabbed the Squire’s collar, bringing him to his feet. With his other hand, he wrenched off the Squire’s balaclava to reveal the blocky white face of a man with a blonde crew cut.

Tim decked the Squire, sending him to the ground yet again. With what little faculties Tim Drake had left that were not under the governance of deep sorrow and blinding rage, he attempted to recall when he had last hit someone this hard, and failed. There was a dull ache spreading from his right hand all the way up to his shoulder, of which he was only dimly aware.

With his left hand, he brought the Squire to his feet for a second time. With his right hand, he savagely punched him.

And again.

And again.

The blows he rained down upon this foul bastard blended into one another. He just started beating this man. He had been beating this man since the dawn of time, forever in the act of punishing this being for a crime so foul that it dwarfed the Big Bang preceding it, and the inevitable Big Crunch to come.

And flitting about the periphery of pain both physical and emotional, like a passive-aggressive gnat, was… _someone _… saying _something._

“STOP!”

“P-P-PLEASE!”

“I’M…”

Tim had to be imagining it. There was no other way in which it could be explained. It must have been like putting an ear to a seashell. One did not hear the ocean. One simply heard the distortion of all sound around them.

He _was _anguish. He _was _fury. He was the very rhythm and impact of bones colliding, of a hand beating a face into meat.

Until he felt a small, firm hand gently fall on his shoulder. And a woman’s deep voice, watery and thick, saying:

“Robin… Enough.”

Tim stopped.

He didn’t know what did it. It could have been that he was addressed by his past _nom-de-guerre. _ It could have been the prospect of meeting the rage of the former Cassandra Cain, at which point he would have been dissected as thoroughly and without shame as a med school cadaver.

But Tim stopped… and then he looked down.

He had painted the grass with the Squire’s blood. What was left of the man’s face was a sour crimson abstract painting that slowly gurgled in pursuit of breath. Tim looked down at the scarlet claw that was his hand and saw the bone of his own middle knuckle peeking up at him like a microscopic dallop of sour cream in the middle of a bowl of borscht.

He looked at Black Bat, feeling the tears stinging his eyes. Cassandra’s shoulders were hunched, her head cast down, and though her face was masked, she radiated sorrow from her very skeleton.

And then he looked up.

Tim Drake fancied himself a rational man. Though he had assisted in a war against two Greek Goddesses of myth when he was eighteen, he didn’t believe in God. Not _that _God. Not the one sold to children in church. No pearly gates, no Saint Peter, no clouds, no harps.

Which meant that in the sky above them, there was no Heaven to welcome someone as kind and decent and brave as Conner Kent inside.

But Tim Drake opened his mouth and screamed at those empty heavens all the same.


	25. This Thing a Quiet Madness Made

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To the person or persons artificially inflating my kudo count:
> 
> Please stop.
> 
> Or don't. I'm not your boss. I just felt the need to publicly distance myself from it. Whatever the hell's going on there, it ain't me.
> 
> I appreciate the well-wishes and good intentions, I really do, but it kinda gives the game away when this story gets more guest kudos in a day than it does actual hits.

**Chapter 25: This Thing a Quiet Madness Made**

ARGUS director Iman Avesta knew there was but one rule in the insane world in which she lived.

If you don’t have a body, then the body’s not dead.

But Iman also knew that that rule was bogus. People fall into oceans and rivers all the time without their corpses being recovered, only for a huge shark or a catfish to be caught twenty years later with undigested femurs and wrist watches found in their digestive tracts. Getting a Disney death like falling into a body of water just meant that that body was subject to even more gruesome indignities after the fact.

She wondered whether or not anything short of some undiscovered leviathan from the ocean floor could even put a dent in the body of a half-human, half-Kryptonian like Conner Kent.

Superman was dead, and Iman Avesta had a splitting headache.

Iman was in the passenger’s seat of a black Cadillac sedan, electric of course, at the tail end of her trip from Washington DC to Gotham City, with her assistant, a tall and handsome drink of water named Agent Dan Silvestri behind the wheel.

The trip had been silent. There was only one person on this earth that Iman was in the mood to talk to. And it was a bad mood, indeed.

The Cadillac went over a couple of bridges to get to the coordinates that Iman had been given: an old meat processing plant on Bleake Island.

Iman emerged from the Cadillac, breathed in the stale piss stench of Gotham City by twilight, and entered the old plant through the front door.

The main factory floor, bereft of its former machinery, was beneath a skylight, through which the red glow of twilight fell. Agent Silvestri scanned the area as Iman stood in the center. Iman had been expecting the smell of stale, rotten meat. She thanked Christ for small favors when all she got was mildew and dust.

“I’m not getting anyone in the area,” Agent Silvestri said.

“And you wouldn’t,” said Iman, before she cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled:

_“Get your ass out here, Cassandra!”_

She felt a finger tap on her left shoulder. She turned, and there stood Black Bat.

Iman Avesta lost her hearing in the line as an agent, tortured by the Sunshine Patriot with sonic blasts. The hearing aids she had were scary strong… and they nonetheless did not detect Black Bat’s movements.

_“Jesus,” _said Agent Silvestri, who apparently didn’t hear her coming either.

Iman glared at Black Bat and said “Take that fucking mask off.”

Black Bat simply said “No.” Iman could detect a thickness in her voice.

Iman glowered, rubbed her face, and folded her arms.

“Do you know how hard it is to scrub Youtube videos and Instagram posts of an event that took place in as big a city as Gotham?” she asked. “I have two STAR Labs workers in a tent on the outskirts of the city, and I’m waiting on presidential approval for the administration of amnestics. President Dibny’s office itself needs to call me and tell me whether or not it’s okay to wipe the memories of two working stiffs. So I have _that _to look forward to.”

Iman huffed and put her hands in her pockets.

“Do you have… _any _fucking clue… how destabilizing it’s going to be for America in general and the world at large to find out that Superman _died? _ How big the power vacuum’s gonna be? How emboldened enemies at home and abroad are gonna get? Yeah, sure, we have Superwoman, we have Power Girl, we have the Superkids, we still have Kong Kenan over in China, but it’s _Superman _. He _means _something. And now he’s _gone.”_

She took a step toward Black Bat.

“And it happened in your town,” Iman said. “On your watch. Amanda Waller had about three phone books worth of files on Bruce, you, and everyone else in this foul-smelling shitshow of a town that ever wore a mask and punched a bad guy, and she was champing at the bit to bring this whole thing down. Now Amanda Waller wasn’t the best person on Earth, but even an evil, broken clock is still right twice a day.”

Iman took a deep breath, and put her hands on her hips.

“My best agent, and the world’s greatest symbol died, and you couldn’t stop it. So tell me why I shouldn’t _blacksite _your worthless ass.”

Black Bat tilted her head. Her voice came out in a whisper.

“Your mouth is bigger than your stomach.”

Iman chuckled. “What, you think I came alone? Knock out as many of my guys as you want. Uncle Sam will be more than happy to send more.”

Black Bat said nothing to this.

Instead, she slowly reached into her utility belt, and pulled out a small black box, big enough for an engagement ring.

“What’s that?” Iman asked.

“The Shadow Density Bullet,” Black Bat whispered. “That’s why… _you… _sent him here, wasn’t it?”

Iman’s insides started boiling. She had given thought to the prospect that, were it not for her orders, Conner Kent would not have been in Gotham City, and he would not have died… but she didn’t want _Cassandra Wayne _thinking about that.

But she stuffed her indignation back down, and reached for the box…

...only for Black Bat to pull it away at the last second.

“What do you say?” Black Bat whispered.

_“‘Please.’”_

“What else?”

“Your autonomy is secure,” Iman said, grimacing. “If anyone from up top fucks with you, I wasn’t behind it.”

Black Bat brought the box back down, and Iman took it. She opened it up, and there was the bullet she’d sent Agent Kent here to find.

“Director Avesta?” Agent Silvestri said, his hand to his ear piece.

She looked at him. “What is it?”

“Word’s come down from President Dibny,” he said. “Your request for the administration of amnestics has been denied.”

Iman looked down at her feet. “Fuck…”

She looked over at Black Bat…

...only to see that she had vanished. Her hearing aids didn’t pick that up either.

“Wow,” said Agent Silvestri.

Iman had to wonder if Alex Danvers over at the DEO had to put up with shit like this. Or Ava Sharpe at the Time Bureau. Did they have to deal with the Bats? 

“I try not to call women bitches,” Iman said. “Solidarity, and all… But God _damn, _y’know?”

* * *

**WAYNE MANOR**

Stephanie Brown, along with Harper Row, Aaliyah Ramsay, and Carrie Kelley, were standing at the main door in the foyer of Wayne Manor, looking out through the side windows.

At the open gates of the manor outside, two figures stood, silhouetted by the moon trying to bust through the clouds. One, small and female, looking up at the other, burly and male, with his head down.

As the Head Bat in Gotham, it was Cassandra Wayne’s painful duty to inform Clark Kent that the man he had looked upon as a brother, Conner Kent, had died in her city.

“I wish we could hear what they were saying,” Carrie said.

“No,” said Stephanie. “You really don’t.”

“This old hat for you?” Aaliyah asked. “Telling superheroes their loved ones died?”

Stephanie shook her head.

“I haven’t told any myself,” said Harper, “but I’ve been to more than my fair share of funerals. You’re looking at a veteran of the Battle of Founders Island. Steph, you remember when Wildcat broke down during Stargirl’s eulogy?”

Stephanie did. “Jesus. That was painful.”

“I don’t think I could do it,” Aaliyah said. “If staying out of a costume means not having to do what Cass is doing now, then that’s fine.”

“Not being in a costume doesn’t protect you from it,” Stephanie said. “You know that, right?”

“Yeah, but the odds go down,” Aaliyah said. “I don’t think I have it in me to break it to a universal icon that his brother just died. I’m just a simple girl from North Carolina.”

“And Cass is _just _a simple girl from Arkansas. And he’s _just _a simple boy from Kansas. Moral of the story here being, no one’s _just _anything.”

Stephanie looked back out the window in the brief lull of silence that followed. She realized she’d been making the mistake of placing the weight of the grief in this situation on Clark. It only now dawned on her that Cassandra was breaking the news that the only man she had ever loved had died on her watch, and she couldn’t stop it, no matter how hard she had tried.

And that just made Stephanie feel worse.

Cassandra Cain had started in as deep a hole as Stephanie was able to conceive. And through work, determination, smarts, stubbornness, and even her fair share of ego, she had worked her way out.

Those slender shoulders of Cassandra’s were strong. But something had to break them in the end. Stephanie hoped to God it wasn’t this.

“Speak for yourself,” Carrie said. “Cape life rules. I’m not giving it up for anything.”

“You wanna be the next Black Bat?” Aaliyah asked.

“Hell no. I plan on being the first eighty-year-old Robin.”

“Life has a habit of getting in the way,” Harper said. “Marriage. Kids. So speak slowly.”

Stephanie saw Carrie furrow her brow. “You were married, right?” Carrie asked.

“Once upon a time,” said Harper.

“Is it true the wedding ring goes on the ring finger because the ring finger has a vein that goes directly to the heart?”

Aaliyah looked at Carrie as though she ducked her head beneath a salad bar sneeze guard to sneeze directly on the lettuce.

“They’re _veins, _Carrie. They _all _go directly to the heart.”

Carrie blinked a couple of times, and put a hand to her head. “Oh my _God.”_

“What is it?” Stephanie asked.

“Naw,” Carrie said. “It’s just… you ever learn something so obvious, and you know it shouldn’t affect you, but it kind of fucks with your day anyway?”

“No,” Stephanie said. “I don’t.”

Carrie nodded, and said “Did you know the plural of _‘beef’ _is _‘beeves?’”_

Stephanie did not, in fact, know that the plural of _“Beef” _was _“Beeves.” _ She had been saying _“Beefs” _all thirty-three years of her life, like some damnable shit-smeared peasant. It was obvious, she knew it shouldn’t affect her, but it kind of fucked with her day anyway. 

“I’m sorry,” Carrie said. “We should, uh… We should be serious right now.”

Stephanie did not want to be serious. Stephanie wanted to be in a situation where they could dissect the ins and outs of the English language, free from the vast and all-consuming specter that was the death of Superman. As far as Stephanie Brown was concerned, Carrie Kelley could be a dumb-assed teenager all she wanted right now.

She didn’t hear Violet Paige come up behind them, but there she was all the same. She tapped Harper on the shoulder of her blue t-shirt.

Harper looked at her. “Yeah, Violet?”

In a spectacle that Stephanie thought she would never see during her natural life, Violet looked down right sheepish. She was slightly shifting from one foot to the other, and twiddling her thumbs.

“Harper, I, uhh… I need your help with something.”

* * *

Harper and Violet found Tim Drake in his old room in the East Wing, pulling a Jay Gatsby, looking out the window at nothing.

In his hand was a bottle of Bud Light.

What worried Harper was that, during the fifteen years she had known her ex-husband, he had never once touched a drop of alcohol.

But then again, it was Bud Light, which was basically a version of O'Doul's with a snotty attitude that consistently asked you if you knew who its father was.

“Hey,” Harper said.

“Hey,” said Tim, not even deigning to look at her. “I almost killed a guy today… So…”

“You, uhh… You wanna talk about that?”

Tim shook his head. “What is it Bruce always liked to say? None of us are perfect, but we’re imperfect in different ways? Cass stopped me in the nick of time. I’m grateful. It won’t happen again now that I know what it looks like, but…”

From the looks of things, Tim didn’t even have a way to finish that sentence. He just shrugged.

“You’re drinking,” Harper said.

Only now did Tim avert his gaze from the window. He looked at the brown bottle of beer in his hand.

“I always told Conner the only time I’d ever crack one open was at his wedding,” he said. “Looks like that’s not happening now.”

A moment of silence. “I called the rest of Young Justice,” Tim said. “Anita took it well. Jinny and Bart didn’t. And Cassie’s not answering her phone.”

“I’m sorry,” Harper said. “He was my friend too, but I know you two were tighter. Hell, you were tighter with him sometimes that you were with me, and I’m your ex-wife.”

“Some things you can only do with your friends,” Tim said. “To quote the great Roy Harper.”

“Tell her what you told me,” Violet said. Harper looked at her.

“Tell me what?”

“Something stinks about this,” Tim said, finally turning around to look his ex-wife in the face. “Something’s off in a way I can’t quite fathom. And it’s driving me fucking nuts.”

“We have a mole,” Violet said.

Harper looked at her in terror. _“What?”_

“They came in through the Batcave,” Violet said. “They had to have access codes for some unhackable entry ways to do it. Only way it could have happened is if someone in this house _gave _‘em to them.”

“I’m past the mole,” said Tim.

“How the fuck can you be _past _the mole?” Harper asked. “I just found out about it, like, _right now.”_

“Why aren’t any of the rest of us dead?” Tim asked. “Besides Conner, why are we still alive? We were all right here? It was a shooting gallery, but the Arkham Knight’s men rolled in non-lethal and opted to knock us all out? Why?”

Harper had to think about it. “The mole could be anonymous. Going on a killing spree could get rid of the one source of info Ra’s and the Arkham Knight have.”

“Okay,” said Tim, “but the mole could have just as easily arranged not to be here when the Knight’s guys struck. Astrid popped you, Violet, to make a statement. They got Dick to demoralize us, and they got Conner to show us that even the strongest of us aren’t safe. That kind of planning… I don’t know.”

Tim took another pull off of his bottle of weak, pissy beer. The very act, to Harper, seemed unnatural. Like a humming bird trying to saw off its own wings.

“And here’s another thing,” Tim said. “Why aren’t the Supers tearing this town apart trying to find the Arkham Knight? She killed Conner. They have a vested interest, and they’re not here.”

“They’re not like us,” Violet said. “They don’t do shit like that.”

“You haven’t been in contact with them a whole lot, have you?” Tim asked. “See, we call ourselves _‘The Batfamily,’ _but we’re not. It’s a loaded term. None of us are related by blood, and only four among us have ever been related by marriage.”

“Just two now,” said Harper.

“Right,” Tim said. “And just three of us by adoption. But the _Supers? _ They actually _are _a family. They share blood, and they’re not here.”

“Cass is out front giving the bad news to Clark,” Violet said. “Could be, she’s asking him to keep the rest of the family out of Gotham.”

“That’d work on Jon and Lara, him being their dad and all,” Tim said. “Work on Kara, too. Karen Starr, though? No fucking way. Power Girl would zip from Wyoming to here, start leveling buildings, and she would _not _be shy about it.”

Harper remembered Tim saying that apart from Conner, Karen _“Power Girl” _Starr was his favorite of the earthbound Kryptonians. To which Harper had replied that with the boom-booms Karen packed, she was _her _favorite too.

“When I became a PI,” Tim said, “I thought I could just rely on the facts and evidence that presented themselves. Only for me to find out that most of this work is gut feelings. I hate those. I need everything measurable. It’s a flaw of mine. I try not to say cliched detective shit, I really do, but…”

The private investigator stood in the bedroom of the billionaire’s country mansion, which was full of suspects in a murder investigation, and said:

“I suspect… even fouler play.”

* * *

The conversation between Cassandra and Clark out at the front of Wayne Manor seemed to be winding down.

And Stephanie Brown still would have given everything she owned to be able to hear it, while still fearing it at the same time.

She could see the burly silhouette of Clark Kent turn away from Cassandra. Stephanie could see him put his hand to his face and bend over, placing his other hand on his knee.

The symbol of kindness and decency the world over was partaking in a display of raw grief.

The words just oozed out of Stephanie’s mouth. “Oh my _Gawwwwwwwwd.”_

“I know,” Carrie said. “This, uh… This really hurts to watch.”

But Clark eventually took his hand away from his face, stood up straight, and flew off. Leaving Cassandra to walk up the gravel driveway to Wayne Manor’s main entrance in what must have been the loneliest trek of her young life.

“Okay,” Stephanie said to Aaliyah and Carrie. “Back up and look natural. Don’t crowd her. Don’t even look at her.”

Carrie and Aaliyah did what they were told. They sat on a bench in the corner of the foyer and started watching something on Carrie’s phone as Cassandra opened the front door.

She stood seemingly shrunken before Stephanie, and Cassandra was already small to begin with. Her cheeks were puffy and slick. Her eyes were red.

Stephanie just looked at her for a moment before she asked “Do you need to talk right now?”

Cassandra looked back at Stephanie and said, in a watery voice, “No.”

Then she walked past Stephanie to the interior of the mansion. Stephanie followed.

“Where are you going?”

“Patrolling.”

“Do you really think you should be alone right now?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t you just talk to me?”

“No.”

Stephanie stopped, and let Cassandra go to the study to go down into the Batcave. Clearly she wasn’t going to get anywhere like this.

An entirely new tack was required.

Stephanie found Selina Wayne sitting cross-legged on a couch in one of the corner living rooms, wearing a pair of sweatpants and a gray t-shirt, playing the positively ancient video game _Doom _on a holographic television set.

She knew that this was the only acceptable way anything was getting shot in this house. Provided, of course, that one was not the butler.

And from the look in Selina’s eyes, it was apparent that she had some aggression of her own to work off. Hence the exploding demons.

“I need a favor,” Stephanie said.

“Is this favor Cassandra-related?”

“Yes.”

Selina hit pause on her game. “Then favor granted.”

Stephanie felt Selina’s green eyes bore into her.

“Be there for her,” Selina said. “She’s the Bat in Gotham. Not being able to stop Superman getting killed isn’t a good look, and she knows it. Be there for her in any way you can.”

Stephanie knew where this was going. “Cass and I… _mutually… _decided we should just be friends.”

Selina raised her fool-spotting eyebrow. “Mutually?”

Stephanie nodded.

Selina facepalmed. “For fuck’s sake, Steph…”

* * *

Bruce was at the Batcomputer down in the cave when Cassandra came down in the elevator. He swiveled the chair around to see her, and saw the state she was in.

“Would you like to talk?” Bruce asked.

“No,” she said, and immediately went to the lockers in another room within the cave.

Bruce had been here before. Having something or someone taken from him, and from the bottom of that dark well, seeing the only remedy for his ails as righteous violence in costume.

He wanted to be the one who broke the news about Conner to Clark, but Cassandra had insisted. She was the Bat in Gotham, so it was on her. And in the midst of the darkness, suspicion, and grief on multiple fronts, Bruce was amazed that he could still find the time to have an unalloyed pride in his daughter.

Black Bat came back out of the locker room, and went to the Batmobile.

“Do I need to tell you that using your fists to work through inner pain is unhealthy, and I’ve been in therapy for fifteen years now to get rid of the damage that it’s done?” Bruce asked.

“You just did,” Black Bat said. “I’m late for work.”

Into the Batmobile she went, and off she drove into the night.

Bruce sighed. It was one thing to tell her, but some things she just may have to learn on her own.

He went back to his work at the computer, investigating the different uses for the chemical amplification reagent that the Squires had stolen from the STAR Labs truck.

The telltale metal shudder of the elevator going back up to the study, and coming back down. The tentative padding of sneakers on concrete.

Bruce had a talent for telling the people in his life merely by the sounds their shoes made on the Batcave floor.

“What can I do for you, Barbara?” he asked without turning around.

“The stuff they stole from that truck,” Barbara said. “What does it do?”

“It bonds with existing chemicals to create a bigger yield,” Bruce said. “It’s still in the test phases, but it’ll work wonders for pesticides, flame retardants, you name it.”

“Venom,” Barbara said. “What about Venom?”

Bruce swiveled yet again in the chair to look at her. She had her arms crossed, staring at the screen of the Batcomputer intently.

The Great Gotham Team-Up twenty-one years ago had been the last great hurrah of Barbara Gordon’s Batgirl. And in the twenty-one years since that night, the experimental venom that Bane had brought into the country (that Catwoman subsequently stole, and then lost) hadn’t been recovered.

Though Barbara had risen to stellar heights (and from a point of severe physical disadvantage, no less) that she could not have even conceived of as Batgirl, he could tell in the intervening years that losing the Venom, and losing the fight with Catwoman in the sewers, still stuck in her craw.

He decided to humor her.

Bruce turned back around, and ran the chemical amplification agent against the formula for the experimental venom that had been puttering around in the banks of the Batcomputer for over two decades now.

“It’ll bond,” Bruce said. “But we have problems.”

“Name them.”

“The first is that because of the organic material found in Venom, it’s the only chemical steroid I know of that can go bad and spoil,” Bruce said. “It was volatile to begin with, but now? It’ll cause homicidal insanity. Which rules the Arkham Knight and Ra’s al Ghul using it on their men right out. They’ll tear each other apart.”

“What if they don’t want to use it on their Squires?” Barbara asked. “What if they want to use it on the city?”

“Then we have a couple of problems with dispersal,” Bruce said. “The first is that there isn’t a way to dose great whacks of the city at the same time.”

“Yes there is,” Barbara said. “The monorail test run the day after tomorrow. It runs around the entire city. Great time to use it.”

“Which brings us to our second problem,” Bruce said. “There’s a problem with viscosity. Once the Venom bonds with the chemical amplification reagent, it’ll turn into a gel. It’ll be too thick to spread. Each dispersal vector would have to be roughly the size of a human pore, but with three quarters the elasticity.”

“What can do that?”

“Nothing,” Bruce said. “Not even WayneTech is that good, and WayneTech is great. No such technology to disperse the Venom and reagent compound exists. Nor will it exist for another twenty years.”

The cave lapsed into silence, until finally Barbara said:

“We have a mole.”

Bruce closed his eyes. “The thought had occurred to me.”

“I have suspects.”

“Name them.”

“Stephanie,” Barbara said.

Bruce opened his eyes and shook his head. “She’s been back after fourteen years, but she has no motive and no means.”

“You think with all the galavanting across the planet she’s done for the past decade and a half, she wouldn’t have run across the League?”

“Doubtful,” Bruce said. “The League’s been keeping a low profile, playing the long game for just this occasion. Plus, she’d have needed access to the Batcave’s entrances. She’s out.”

“Okay,” Barbara said. “How about Cullen?”

Bruce turned to her. “Seriously?”

“He had access,” Barbara said.

“But no motive.”

“Working for a billionaire is motive in and of itself.”

“If he wanted us dead, he would have poisoned us,” Bruce said. “There are easier ways for a butler to commit mass murder than working with a centuries-old guild of assassins.”

Barbara looked down at the floor when she said “Jason.”

Bruce’s mind had been leaning that way for hours now. There was a motive, sure. Jason Todd hated Bruce Wayne, and it was not beyond him to wish to destroy everything he had ever touched.

He had taken a vow never to raise a hand in anger or duty, and contacting Ra’s al Ghul to do the dirty work for him would be a great way to bypass it.

During that heated monologue he had delivered in Bruce’s bedroom yesterday, he had said that he had snuck past Wayne Manor’s perimeter defences to sneak into the mausoleum on the rear grounds. If he could do that, he could find a way around the Batcave’s passcodes, right?

_And yet..._

During that profane soliloquy, he said that Ra’s and the Arkham Knight would not think of sparing him, passive observer or no. And the one thing Bruce could remember thinking while Jason was yelling at him was that Jason wasn’t _lying._

“No,” Bruce said. “It’s not him.”

“How can you be sure?”

“He doesn’t fit.”

Barbara turned almost as red as her hair. She brushed a bit of it from between her glasses and her eye when she asked “Okay, who do you think it is?”

Bruce’s mind danced about motive and fact, theory and evidence, before he gave voice to the only possible conclusion.

“No one.”

Barbara’s green eyes flared. “What?”

“No one under this roof betrayed me,” Bruce said. “Either Ra’s wants us to think there’s a mole, or there’s some mitigating factor we haven’t found out yet. Either way, I don’t believe we have a mole problem.”

Barbara just… blinked. She was caught in a rictus of her own apoplexy.

“You… don’t… _believe…?”_

Then she threw up her hands and exploded.

_“What the fuck happened to you?” _she seethed with all of the apparent poison in her body. “What happened to the guy who thought no one was above reproach or suspicion? What happened to the guy who yelled at _me, _and _Dick, _and _Jason _and called us all failures every time we screwed up the tiniest thing? And now you don't _believe? _ WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO BATMAN?”

Bruce had always had a frosty relationship with Barbara even at the best of times. This was decidedly not such an instance. And he was fairly sure she’d been saving this one up for decades now.

“I’m not Batman anymore,” Bruce said. “It’s not my job.”

“And if it _were _your job, we wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with.”

Bruce knew where this was going. And he was sincerely shocked to hear it coming from, of all people, Barbara Gordon.

“We lost Dick Grayson six years before he left this earth because we had faith in Cassandra,” Bruce said. “You and I both.”

“And we were wrong,” Barbara said. This seemed to still her. Seemed to ebb away her anger. But it was only replaced with shame.

“Cass is every last bit a daughter to me as she is to you,” Barbara said. “It kills me to say it, but it needs to be said. She can’t do it. She can’t be the Bat in Gotham. We lost Nightwing and Superman in this city, on our watch, and if you were still wearing that costume, we wouldn’t have. There’s no coming back from this.”

Barbara took a step forward. “Suit up, Bruce. Be Batman again. Your city needs you.”

Bruce slowly swiveled to look at his old costume in the display case among the old Robin and Batgirl outfits.

In the name of that cape, of that cowl, of that symbol, he chose the path of never-ceasing torment and never-ending misery for the sake of protecting his home. And in so doing, through his vigilance and paranoia he had, at one time or another, alienated every last person who had ever been in a position to care about him. In some cases even irreparably, as he had evidently done with Barbara, if the current outburst was any indicator.

For the past six years, he had thought of not being Batman as though he had willingly sacrificed a limb. Every cell in his body had screamed to put the armor back on and continue his crusade, even if it meant the cycle of sadness and alienation would continue.

And now, when no one would judge him for suiting up and lending a hand, even in a supporting capacity… he just couldn’t do it.

He looked back at Barbara, and said “No.”

The entirety of Barbara Gordon’s body seemed to sour with contempt, before she turned and walked away.

“I’m going back to the Clock Tower,” she said, frost in her voice. “It’s not safe here. And it’s not smart, either.”

She got to the elevator, stopped, and turned around. Now she just looked sad.

“If Dick were Batman, he’d still be alive,” she said. “You know I’m right.”

* * *

**ARKHAM ASYLUM**

Astrid Arkham knew energy drinks were deeply unhealthy.

But she killed Superman today.

She could have a treat.

Astrid decided to have her can of Monster beneath the faucet of the open tile shower in the same wing as the morgue in which she slept. Being the leader had its perks, and she claimed this entire wing for her own.

She took a swig as the hot water cascaded down her scarred flesh. She stared into the steam at nothing in particular.

Astrid had studied all her life at the feet of The Demon, and while the great Ra’s al Ghul praised her mind, he had also said that her biggest problem was impulsiveness.

And she could see where the man was coming from.

She jumped into the Gotham City operation with both feet, planting missile installations across the city just on the off-chance that one of them might take out Mother Panic on her glider. That had panned out, much to her surprise, but it was only with the intervention of her Mystery Caller that a deeper plan began to take shape. One of demoralization and fear.

Astrid wished to meet this Mystery Caller of hers. Hear their story. Share in their hatred.

However the Mystery Caller hadn’t made contact since before the death of Conner Kent. So she was left to her own devices yet again.

But what devices they were. One in particular stuck out to Astrid.

The Squires had intercepted an inter-office City Hall email stating that Selina Wayne would be on her way to the building tomorrow morning to answer some of Mayor Alysia Yeoh’s questions.

No doubt her husband would accompany her, for moral support if for nothing else.

And Astrid _did _put a tracker on that shitty pick-up truck of Bruce’s before she left Wayne Manor today.

In the best of all possible scenarios, Astrid would save her mother’s murderer for last. To flay the flesh from his bones in front of his ruined city, the heads of his pitiful makeshift family on pikes with their eyes gouged out.

_Then again…_

Astrid Arkham took another swig of amped up, sugary garbage beneath the hot water of the asylum shower.

She was feeling _impulsive._


	26. How The Batman Died

**Chapter 26: How The Batman Died**

Bruce felt the gray morning light warm his face before his eyes registered it from beneath his closed eyelids.

He felt warmth from beneath the covers next to him. There were days he was surprised to find he was married, even fifteen years after the fact. He’d not only been alone, but had made a point of being alone for such a portion of his lifetime that there was a woman who loved him so deeply in spite of himself became a pleasant surprise on some days.

Not one to simply laze in bed once he was conscious, Bruce rose, letting the covers fall down his bare chest and into his lap. He felt a couple of bones in his spine pop, and he cleared his throat quietly, so as not to wake Selina.

Too late.

Selina’s delicate hand arose after him, and she traced vague nonsensical patterns about his back with her index finger.

Bruce Wayne was fifty-one years old.

* * *

_Bruce Wayne was eight years old._

_It was a Saturday morning, and he was up with the sun. His eyes shot open, and he bounded from bed like a coiled spring finally let loose._

_He bolted over to the mirror atop the dresser over in the corner of the small East Wing bedroom. _

_Last night, Bruce had been out in the rain before bedtime, and went to bed with his hair still damp. The results of such actions on this bright Saturday morning was a rampaging case of bedhead. To Bruce, it appeared as though his scalp was attempting to give painful birth to a black octopus._

_Bruce scowled at his own reflection and tugged the collar of his burgundy PJs, before he went to the chair next to the dresser. Sitting there were the clothes that Alfred picked out for him the night before._

_His attire snugly under his arm, he left the bedroom and padded down the hallway to the bathroom, where he would take a shower._

_He’d save brushing his teeth for afterwards, though. He didn’t want the minty aftertaste while he ate his breakfast._

_Alfred was making scrambled eggs._

* * *

Cullen was making french toast.

Of the domestic duties that Cullen Row had inherited from the late, great Alfred Pennyworth, it was cooking with which he had the hardest time. For Alfred had actually gone to school to attain his culinary expertise. Cullen just had Youtube tutorials.

Not that if affected Bruce any. For he forwent the toast, as he did meals every morning, opting instead for the cup of strong coffee that he made himself.

Cullen, in his sharp gray suit, turned off the stove, and placed a plate of french toast in front of Selina, who was sitting across from Bruce at the kitchen island. She too took the strong coffee Bruce made every morning. He had to remind himself every once in a while to make two cups. Decades of self-imposed solitude and selfishness had ingrained some habits that were hard to break.

His wife sat there in a gray pantsuit and a white silk blouse with three undone buttons. The gloomy light streaming through the window behind her brought out the fake gray streaks in her long and lustrous black hair. She was checking her phone.

Bruce Wayne was not one of those soppy romantics. He didn’t forget to breathe or think when he was around Selina. In fact, Selina inspired some of his best thinking, though he’d never admit as much to her.

Selina’s green eyes caught his. She looked from him, down to the promise of cleavage that he almost open shirt seemed to hold, and then back to him.

“Too much for City Hall?” she asked.

Bruce shook his head. “You’re fine.

“You’re fucking A right I am.”

“I wouldn’t dream of telling you what to do.”

“You’re fucking A right you wouldn’t.”

She looked over at Cullen, who was cleaning up at the stove. “You holding up okay, Cullen?”

“Yeah,” Cullen said. “I’m fine.”

She furrowed her brow. “I seemed to detect a whiff of something when you brought me my food.”

“Oh yeah?” Cullen asked. Bruce seemed to detect a creeping redness in his face.

“If I didn’t know any better,” Selina said, “I’d say… Polo by Ralph Lauren?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“First,” Selina said, “Do we really pay you so little that you have to resort to _Ralph Lauren?”_

“I _like _Polo,” Cullen said. “And it’s not Polo, and shut up.”

“And second,” Selina said, her full lips creeping back for a smile, “it seems our butler wants to impress someone.”

“Don’t tease him,” Bruce said. 

“I’m not teasing him,” Selina said.

“You are too,” said Cullen.

“I am not. I just want to know the name of the fellow who won our little Cullen’s heart.”

“You don’t get to know.”

“Please?”

“His name is Nunya Bidness, and he hails from the sovereign nation of Kissmyassistan.”

“Fine,” Selina said, still smiling. “All I’ll say is that the hot tub room in the West Wing is soundproofed. Paid for it out of pocket. Go nuts, young man.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” Cullen said before he walked out of the kitchen.

“I'm in my fifties,” Selina said. “I’m allowed to meddle.”

Bruce felt himself grinning against his will. “What’s the news?”

Selina looked at her phone, and sighed. “Rumors about the death of Superman.”

Bruce sighed, his grin disappearing. Avesta and her little goblins over at ARGUS had apparently not been able to scrub all of the phone footage of Conner falling into the ocean the day before.

“Have you talked to your daughter?” Selina asked.

Bruce felt the minute temptation to tell her that, because of the way adoption and marriage work, Cassandra was her daughter too, but neither Selina Wayne nor Cassandra Wayne looked at each other in such a way, though they looked upon each other most warmly. And Stephanie Brown was back in town, and that made things muddier pertaining to which of the two young women that Selina would call _“Daughter.”_

“I tried to,” Bruce said. “She didn’t want to hear it.”

“Hmm,” said Selina.

“What is it?”

“Just… seems familiar, that’s all.”

“I know,” said Bruce. “I’m proud that she does the job. I’m proud that she throws herself into it, but…”

“But what?”

Bruce set his coffee aside, and folded his arms on the table. “I just wished she’d learn from my mistakes.”

“In what way?”

“I’ve been surrounded by people who cared for me for about thirty years, now,” Bruce said. “I didn’t notice it for about twelve of them. History does not repeat itself, but it does on occasion rhyme. Thinking I was alone in all of this, taking my anger with me every night… It hurt the city. And I don’t want that to happen again.”

Selina, who was about to take a bite out of her french toast, put it back down on the plate, and looked at him.

“If I asked you, as your wife, to put that armor on and be Batman again, would you do it?”

“Barbara would like me to,” Bruce said. “Very much so.”

“Barbara Gordon said some awful shit that she can’t take back,” Selina said. “And when I see her, I’m busting her head to the white meat. But you didn’t answer my question.”

She leaned back in her chair.

“I'm fifty-one,” she said. “You ask me when I’m seventeen what I’d be like when I’m fifty-one, I’d say I’d be in my housecoat and slippers, handing out Werther’s Originals to grandkids who didn’t want them. But look at me now. I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in. I take these fake gray streaks out of my hair, and Tim Drake looks older than me.”

Bruce felt that was unfair to Tim… He also felt that it was true.

“I thought I’d be in prison at fifty-one years of age,” Selina said. “Except I’m the CEO of my family’s company. Famous the world over. Lived a hundred lifetimes in just the one, and I ain’t done yet. Tell me at seventeen that age ain’t nothing but a number, and I say _suuuuuuuuure. _ But I’m fifty-one, and I know it’s true. And you? You don’t look so bad either.”

“Thank you.”

“If this were a table instead of an island I’d be playing footsie with you right now, just so you know.”

Bruce found it in him to smile. “Would you be Catwoman again?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because Catwoman without Batman is just an answer without a question,” Selina said. “A floating idea, free of context.”

She leaned in again, bringing her elbows up to the island’s surface.

“You have unfinished business, just say so,” Selina said. “Say it in front of the one person on Earth who won’t judge you. Who will support you and love you no matter what.”

She let that hang in the air for a moment before she asked her question a second time.

“You gonna be Batman again?”

* * *

_“I won’t,” said Bruce._

_“You _will,” _said Alfred. “It’s too high and too flimsy. The structure will not hold.”_

_Bruce, sitting at the kitchen island, had piled a not insubstantial amount of fluffy golden scrambled eggs atop a triangular piece of buttery and diagonally cut sourdough toast._

_It was young Bruce’s mission to open his mouth wide enough to fit it in and take a bite._

_Bruce failed, and failed immediately. The peak of his mountain of eggs careened into the tip of his nose before it even got to his mouth, sending pillowy wads of the stuff down to the hardwood floor._

_A man’s voice from the kitchen doorway. “Pick it up, Bruce.”_

_Bruce looked up to see his mother Martha and father Thomas standing there. They were both wearing matching white bathrobes, which meant that they themselves had just emerged from the shower._

_The eight-year-old Bruce Wayne didn’t know how they did it. There was only one shower in the bathroom adjacent to the master bedroom. Unless they went into the shower together, a prospect that young Bruce regarded as utter insanity. Not to mention _gross.

_“But dad,” Bruce said, “we have a butler.”_

_“It’s not a butler’s job to save us from ourselves,” Thomas said. “You made the mess, you clean it up.”_

_Bruce’s face fell. “Okay.” _

_By the time he had picked the eggs up from the floor barehanded, threw them away in the waste basket next to the sink and sat back down to his breakfast, Thomas and Martha had already seated themselves to their own plates of eggs and toast, as well as cups of coffee._

_“Thank you, Alfred,” Martha said. _

_“You are most welcome, Missus Wayne.”_

_As Martha salted her eggs, Thomas fixed Bruce with a gaze._

_“Bruce?”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“What’s that movie you like so much?”_

_Bruce blinked. “I like a lot of movies.”_

_“Okay,” Thomas said, smiling. “Fair enough. But the one I’m thinking of is in black-and-white.”_

_Bruce knew what he was getting at. _“The Mark of Zorro!” _he said, feeling his own face light up._

_“You know,” Martha said, “most children your age like _Star Wars.”

_“I like _Star Wars,” _said Bruce._

_“But you like _Zorro _better?”_

_Bruce, who had stuffed his face with eggs, nodded enthusiastically._

“Why, t _hough?” Thomas asked._

_Bruce had swallowed his food._

_It would be both unwise and unkind to ask such questions concerning film criticism of an eight-year-old boy. Bruce didn’t have the faculties to rhapsodize about the distinct sense of unreality that the black-and-white 1940 20th Century Fox production instilled in him. The imitation of nineteenth century California that, even to eyes as untrained as Bruce Wayne’s, was obviously _not _nineteenth century California. How everything was bright and clean, and how Don Diego Vega, as played by Tyrone Power, fought the bad guys and did good from beneath a mask. _

_Finally, Bruce said “I just… _do.”

_Thomas nodded. “Fair enough.”_

_“Where did you even find that movie?” Martha asked._

_“It’s one of mine,” Alfred said. “I taped it from _The Late, Late Show _on Channel Thirty.”_

_The VHS tape from the library, with the title _“The Mark of Zorro” _written upon the label in Alfred Pennyworth’s small-yet-flowing penmanship, was one of Bruce’s most prized possessions. He had taken to carrying it from room to room throughout the mansion, even with no intention of watching it. He just liked having the tape around._

_“But you always watch it by yourself, though,” Thomas said. “Why is that?”_

_A flush of embarrassment came over Bruce. He felt himself shrink._

_“I watched it with mom,” Bruce said. “But she makes me watch _My Fair Lady _afterwards.”_

_Thomas’ blue eyes floated over to his wife. “Why must you abuse our child with Audrey Hepburn?”_

_“I’ll have you know,” Martha said, brushing a lock of light brown hair behind her ear, “that _My Fair Lady _is a classic.”_

“My Fair Lady _is a temporal anomaly,” Thomas said. “It’s three hours long, but lasts a hundred years. It is the worst form of time travel.”_

_“It won eight Oscars,” Martha said. “Including Best Picture. The Academy has spoken.”_

_“I looked it up, babe,” Thomas said. _“Dr. Strangelove _and _Mary Poppins _were nominated, too. You know good and well _My Fair Lady _did not deserve that Oscar. Hell, I’d have even given it to _Becket. _ That was nominated too.”_

_“The. Academy. Has. Spoken,” Martha said. Then she reached out and ruffled Thomas’ still-damp black hair._

_He smiled. “Anyway, Bruce, your mother and I are very pleased with your grades at school.”_

_It did not occur to Bruce to voice his gratitude. He just said “Okay.”_

_“And I figure,” Thomas said, “hard work deserves a reward.”_

_“Okay.”_

_“And tonight… I have booked a theater in town tonight, and they will be showing _The Mark of Zorro _just for us.”_

_Bruce’s heart caught in his throat. He would be watching his favorite movie on a big screen for the first time ever._

_But something halted his reverie, and his state of mind must have shown on his face._

_“What is it?” Martha asked._

_Bruce looked down at his dungarees and his blue and red striped shirt before he looked back at his mother._

_“Do I have to wear a suit?” Bruce asked._

_Thomas smiled some more. “Yes, Bruce. Yes you do.”_

_“But Tommy Elliot doesn’t have to wear a suit to go to the movies.”_

_“Tommy Elliot picks his nose and eats it,” Martha said._

_Bruce laughed. Partly because those words, in that order, coming out of his mother’s mouth was instinctively hilarious to him. And partly because it was true. Bruce had in fact seen his friend Tommy Elliott go mining for green gold and his subsequent feasts upon the bounty, be it sticky or crusty._

_“But _still, _though.”_

_Thomas got his stern face on._

_“Bruce,” he said. “Not everyone has what you have. Not everyone has a butler who makes them scrambled eggs in the morning. Not everyone has a dad who can just call up 20th Century Fox and ask if they have any thirty-five millimeter prints of an ancient Tyrone Power movie they made just lying around. Some people have to work three jobs. Some people can’t eat at all.”_

_Young Bruce Wayne felt his stomach sink._

_“Now we’re _Waynes,” _Thomas said. “Some people will love us for no other reason than that. And some people will _hate _us for no other reason than that. As much as there will be days where you wish you can escape it, you never will. So the least you can do, the very least you can do… is not lie about it. We come from great privilege in a city where so many others are far less lucky. And that means wearing a suit at times when you don’t want to. Because we have to tell the world who we are. It’s the only way to be honest. It’s the only way this works.”_

* * *

Bruce wore a dark blue suit and gray shirt with no tie.

But he opted to drive his wife to City Hall in his pick-up truck. Both he and Selina thought it would buy at least a little cred with Mayor Yeoh, who had apparently been on the warpath against capes since the attack on the Gotham Royal some nights before, if Harper was to be believed. Selina being the former Catwoman, she had to be questioned at the very least.

They both listened to the radio silently. The news report informed him that the fires in the Amazon in Brazil had finally died down.

He felt Selina’s hand slowly creep down his right thigh.

Bruce took his eyes off the mainland street for the briefest of an instant to look at his wife, who was smiling.

Selina actually liked the pick-up truck that Bruce used to go to his incognito construction jobs. She had said that the flatbed in the back was, in her words, _“just the right size.”_

They had taken the truck out for a night in the woods a year or so back. The flatbed was, in fact, just the right size.

Bruce’s eyes lazily went back to the street, looking for the turn on Fairfield Dr--

**BOOM!**

A great force collided with the driver’s side of the truck, sending the vehicle flying. The crumple of metal and the crash of shattering glass before…

_Darkness._

It lasted both an eon and a second, and as Bruce came to, he felt his arms dangling above him. The truck was upside down.

He looked to his right.

Selina’s arms were also dangling. Her eyes rolled back in her head before they finally closed. And a cut along her hairline had dyed a gray streak in her hair red.

Bruce steadied himself and unbuckled his seat belt. His head thundered against the roof of the car. He coiled to get upright, and brought a hand to his wife’s face.

“Selina?”

She stirred. She asked, weakly:

“Sailor...?”

He unbuckled her seat belt, and tried to get her down the ground as softly as he could. He unlocked the passenger door and kicked it open.

Whatever had hit them had knocked the truck from the middle of the street to the sidewalk in front of the Fairfield Drive Applebee’s. Bruce looked for any pedestrians who might have been hit, but all he saw were tools from the back of the truck that had been knocked loose from the impact.

He knelt down and worked Selina’s right arm over his shoulder, and tried to get her standing. Selina’s head was hanging limply from her neck, her scalp was spewing blood, and she was essentially out on her feet.

But after forcefully bringing Selina up, he looked over what was left of his truck to see what had hit him.

Through the thin mist, he saw the delineation of the vehicle that had collided with the truck. It was an armored personnel carrier, military grade, though he couldn’t see the color.

The bulky silhouette of the driver emerged from the fog.

It was the Arkham Knight.

And she was carrying a rocket launcher.

* * *

_“Are you ready?” Martha asked._

_“Yup,” said Bruce._

_Thomas and Martha, dressed in elegant formal wear, had bought their young son a hot dog from a street vendor before they were to arrive at the theater. After he had finished it, however, there remained the issue of the napkins and the flimsy paper in which the morsel of food had come._

_“Go,” Martha said._

_Bruce, in his black suit and tie, did a little shuffle on the balls of his feet before yelling “JORDAN FAKES LEFT!” and throwing the wadded up paper refuse._

_It landed in the wide open maw of a silver steel trash can in an alley. Bruce raised his arms in triumph._

_“OHHHHHHHHHH!” Martha yelled. “A THREE AT THE BUZZER! THE CHICAGO BULLS WIN THE NBA FINALS IN SIX GAMES!”_

_Bruce pumped his little fists in triumph as his mother, dressed in a sequined black gown, a fox stole, and a pearl necklace, waved an imaginary microphone in front of her son’s face._

_“Mister Jordan,” Martha said. “What were your thoughts as the fourth quarter wound down?”_

_Bruce automatically parroted the one thing he ever remembered from NBA post-game interviews. “I’m just one man out there, trying to give a hundred percent for the team.”_

_Martha laughed, and tousled her son’s hair._

_Bruce knew that he lived in a state of oddity, his mother being into sports unlike the mothers of all his friends. Basketball was her sport, unlike Thomas, who was a baseball guy._

_And Thomas, wearing a black suit and tie identical to his young son’s, did not look amused._

_“What’s your problem?” Martha asked, still smiling._

_He looked at Bruce. “Couldn’t root for a _Gotham _team, there, squirt?”_

_“The Guardsmen don’t have Jordan,” Bruce said._

_To which his father replied “They would have Jordan if the owner weren’t such a dumbass.”_

_“Hey,” Martha said. “Isn’t that dumbass a donor to the hospital?”_

_Thomas, who was the chief cardiac surgeon at Gotham General Hospital, said “Yes, he is. He can buy MRI equipment, but he can’t buy brains.”_

_Martha smiled, and kissed her husband._

“Ugh!” _cried Bruce. “That’s _traumatizing!”

_Thomas looked at Bruce with a broad beam. “Do you even know what that word means?”_

_“Sure I do,” said Bruce. “It’s like _‘gross,’ _but fancier.”_

_Martha laughed at this._

_“Never let it be said my boy isn’t smart,” Thomas said. He put his arm around Bruce’s shoulder. And they walked to the theater. _

_The Monarch Theatre occupied a square block of real estate (which included both the structure itself as well as the parking lot) in Gotham City’s East End. It had been erected in 1922, during the neighborhood’s hey-day. Then the depression hit. People moved out. Crime moved in. But the Monarch Theatre, in some way or shape or form, still remained._

_At present, it was an art house and repertory theater showing the finest in independent and foreign films as well as reissues of Hollywood classics. It was the home of the Gotham City Film Festival every March, which was funded by the Wayne Foundation._

_The Monarch’s owner, one Morris Delaney, was in the cramped retro lobby when the Waynes entered. He wore a light gray suit, white shirt, black tie, and gold-plated name tag. He shook Thomas’ hand._

_“Thank you very much for doing this for us, Morris,” Thomas said._

_Morris smiled. “Not a problem at all. The show will start whenever you’re ready.”_

_Thomas smiled back, and looked down at his son. “Still hungry after that hot dog?”_

_Bruce nodded._

_“Want some candy? Something to drink?”_

_Bruce nodded again._

_Thomas fished a twenty dollar bill out of the interior pocket of his suit jacket, and handed it to Bruce._

_“To your heart’s content,” he said._

_“Thank you,” said Bruce, and he walked to the concession stand._

_Two attendants, one male and one female, were dressed like the hotel bellhops that Bruce had seen at that fancy hotel when his dad had taken him to Metropolis six months ago, complete with matching burgundy pillbox hats. They stood at attention like soldiers._

_Bruce put the twenty on the counter. “May I have a small Coke and a box of Hot Tamales, please?”_

_One of them, the woman with the name tag that said _“Claudia,” _smiled, and said “Sure thing.”_

_They operated with military efficiency. And once he had his soda and his candy, he said the words that his father taught him to say when he was interacting with the work-a-day folks of Gotham City:_

_“Thank you very much. And keep the change.”_

_With his mother and father flanking him, Bruce entered the dimly lit theater. The Wayne family took their seats in the middle row on the right side._

_The theater went dark. And the familiar orchestral sound of the 20th Century Fox fanfare sounded as the screen came alive._

* * *

There was an immense pain in Bruce Wayne’s side. Were he fortunate enough to see an afterlife, he would perish a second time from an acute embarrassment that he was an old man whose chief factor in his inability to get away from a crazy woman with a rocket launcher was a broken hip.

It couldn’t have been that bad, Bruce reckoned, but it still hurt and it slowed him down. Slowing him down further was Selina, who was concussed, bleeding profusely, and could barely walk.

For her part, however, the Arkham Knight was content to saunter behind them as she loaded her rocket launcher.

Bruce hobbled, holding Selina all the while, down Fairfield Drive. They came to Finbar’s Irish Pub, which fit snugly into the bottom floor of a red brick building on the corner of Fairfield and Ninety-Fifth-Street.

Two ruddy-faced white men, both in thick cable knit sweaters and both on the husky side, exited the pub, and saw them.

“Jesus,” the one on the right said. “Are you two alright?”

Bruce, dazed, pained, and almost out of breath, said “Move!”

“What?”

“MOVE, N--”

The high whistle of a rocket launcher, and the floor above Finbar’s exploded in a deep crimson haze of pulverized red brick.

Bruce hit the concrete, taking Selina with him.

By the time he came back up, ears ringing, he saw the carnage. The corner of Fairfield and Ninety-Fifth was a scarlet wasteland decorated by two dead bar patrons. One of whom was missing everything above the waist.

Through the high keen in his ears, he could hear the Arkham Knight calling out to him.

_“No talking in class, Bruce! Anyone you try to help gets spanked!”_

And the low metallic _thunk! _of another rocket being loaded.

Bruce looked down at himself. He was smeared in red dust from head to toe. Selina was very much the same, though the cut in her head was dousing her face with a wetter coat.

He worked her arm back around his shoulder, and groaned through the pain as he got them both to their feet.

And the slow-motion pursuit began anew.

Bruce cut left…

...into an alley.

* * *

_Bruce cut into imaginary soldiers of the evil and dastardly Alcalde with an equally imaginary rapier as he and his parents left the theater. Thomas thanked the owner of the Monarch yet again, (with Bruce repeating those words) before they found themselves on the narrow sidewalk next to the street._

_In the hundred or so minutes since the Wayne family entered the Monarch, Gotham City had decided, in its infinite wisdom, to start filling in the potholes in front of the theater._

_Surveying the noisy construction equipment in front of them, Thomas said “Shit.”_

_“Bad word,” said Bruce._

_“Sorry,” said Thomas._

_“Can we get back to the car some other way?” Martha asked, gently massaging her pale collar bone beneath her pearl necklace._

_Thomas scratched his chin, which was something he always did while he was thinking._

_“There’s an alley behind the building,” Thomas said. “We can cut over, take the long way ‘round.”_

_“Sounds good,” said Martha, and off they went around the corner, into the alley._

_The buildings on either side of young Bruce seemed as tall and insurmountable to him as the walls of the Grand Canyon, or trenches in the Death Star. The concrete at his feet was still wet from the previous night’s rain._

_“I don’t think I need to ask you whether or not you liked the movie,” Martha said._

_Which was true. Bruce had sat, open-mouthed and enthralled, through all ninety-four minutes of the feature, the thirty-five millimeter print of _The Mark of Zorro _so pristine that, projected on a screen as large as the Monarch’s, seemed to have in inverse three-dimensional effect on young Bruce. It was as though he could leave his seat, walk up to the front of the theater, and leap through the screen to join Zorro in his fight against injustice in all its monochrome glory._

_And the last words Bruce Wayne would ever say to his mother and father were: _

_“It was _awesome.”

_The sound of wet street beneath heavy boots came from behind the Waynes._

_They were not alone._

_Bruce and his parents turned to see a man in a corduroy jacket and jeans staring them down from beneath hooded brows. The rest of his face had a pale, malnourished quality to it, with sunken cheeks and thin, chapped lips. A thinning forest of unkempt brown hair swirled about the top of his skull._

_When he was eventually apprehended, Bruce learned that his name was Joseph Raymond Chilton, but he was known by his underworld _confreres _as _“Joe Chill.”

_“Can we help you, friend?” Thomas asked._

_And that’s when the gun came out._

_Thomas immediately yanked Bruce behind him. But Bruce could still see events unfold._

_“Your money or your life,” Joe Chill said as he drew down on them._

_Bruce could see how rigid his mother had gotten, seemingly unbreathing._

_“Friend,” Thomas said, putting his hands up and trying to keep his voice steady. “You don’t have to do this.”_

_“Your money or your life,” Joe Chill said again, his gravelly tenor reverberating off the walls of the alley._

_“You need help,” Thomas said. “I can see that. But if you do this, you can’t walk back from it. I can be the man you kill, or I can be the man who helps you.”_

_Bruce heard a hissing sigh come from Joe Chill’s mouth. “I’m not getting your money, am I?”_

_Young Bruce Wayne was aware, even at his young age, of his father Thomas’ penchant for bad jokes at the worst possible times. In public when he was with his family, he was respectable and more than a little stern, but when they were in private, Thomas Wayne had the habit of lapsing into occasional spells of goofball._

_So with his final words, Thomas Wayne showed a levity that his eight-year-old son would never possess in the ensuing forty-three years of his life when he said:_

_“Sure you are. You take MasterCard?”_

** _BANG!_ **

_Joe Chill’s bullet caught Thomas Wayne at center mass, right through the heart. He hit the ground not knowing he was dead._

_Finally loosed from her adamantine torpor, Martha Wayne tried to shove Bruce further back behind her as she yelled “THO--”_

** _BANG!_ **

_Joe Chill’s second bullet hit Martha Wayne at the neckline, painting the pavement behind her red, and severing the cord of pearls around her throat. She too dropped to the concrete._

_Four seconds within the minute of 10:47 PM was all it took the world to fully extricate itself from the continued living presence of Thomas and Martha Wayne._

_It was as though the blinders of Bruce Wayne’s existence had been drawn back with the power of bottomless, searing pain. The world beyond him, once so enticing in its variance and mystery, became a blank and unending void._

_There was this._

_There was _only _this._

_Bruce fell to his knees upon the damp pavement, stray pearls, and his parents’ blood._

_Looking up from the inferno of his very life, he saw Joe Chill level the gun on him, apparently decide against it at the last minute, and turn to exit the alley._

_The man had just murdered his parents, and not only did no outside force governed by a just and caring world stop him from doing so, it was not going to stop him from getting away with it._

_Still in the grip of a cowardice for which he would hate himself for a majority of his life, Bruce Wayne called out silently to some force greater than he to stop Joe Chill in his tracks. To bring him to justice. To turn back the irreversible course of time itself to bring life and air and blood back to Thomas and Martha Wayne._

_Bruce did not call to God in his pained and horrified silence._

_He called to Zorro._

* * *

The alley was a dead end.

For all intents and purposes, anyway. The street to the left was blocked off by a large, green dumpster. If Bruce was at tip-top shape, he could move it. But Bruce was not at tip-top shape. There was a pain in his side, he was holding up his uncomprehending wife… and he was fifty-one years old.

But he was going to try. He was going to set Selina down. He was going to try to move that dumpster with all the strength left in him. He was going to--

_“Well.”_

Bruce’s head snapped to the sound of the voice.

The Arkham Knight was standing in the mouth of the alley, her shadow looming large from the gray dreariness of the street.

And the Arkham Knight… dropped her rocket launcher before she started slowly advancing.

“I just want you to know,” the Arkham Knight said, her voice coming from her helmet in an electronic distortion, “that I didn’t plan this. How was I supposed to know you’d go running down an alley?”

She got her Glock from the holster on the left thigh of armor.

“But _this,” _the Arkham Knight said, _“this _is poetic. You, Bruce Wayne, are gonna die with your wife in some random, shitty alley. Gunned down like dogs. Just like your Mom and Pop.”

Bruce’s mind hung on one of her words.

_Poetic._

_History does not repeat itself…_

He could hear Astrid Arkham take a deep sniff of air beneath her helmet and let it out through her mouth in satisfaction.

“I want to commit this to memory,” the Arkham Knight said. “I want to remember every last bit of texture. Every drop of blood. I want to know the temperature. I want to memorize the scene. I want to recall everything perfectly when I reminisce about the time I killed my mother’s murderer, and the thieving whore he married.”

“I didn’t kill your mother,” Bruce said.

The Arkham Knight finally leveled the gun at his head. “As far as last words go, those are terrible. Try again.”

Bruce took a deep breath.

Batman always had a way out.

But Bruce Wayne was not Batman anymore.

So Bruce Wayne did not.

For the first time in his fifty-one years of age, he was in a lethal situation in which there was no way to win. 

Bruce did not believe in God. But if there were a place where all he had lost throughout his life had holed up, never aging, riding out the existence of the universe in a location beyond the mundane trappings of time and space, he would like to take his wife there. To see them all.

Alfred.

Dick.

Mom.

Dad.

He did not have time to wonder whether the looks on their faces would be that of joy or shame at a life wasted, a bad situation made immeasurably worse for all the lives he had inexorably tangled in his crusade. But he wondered anyway.

He looked at Selina. Her eyes were half open. Her face was a slick mask of blood. Her clothes were coated in rusty red dust.

And she was still, somehow, the most beautiful person he had ever had the privilege to lay his eyes upon.

“I love you so much,” Bruce said.

Selina blinked her left eye about a half a second before she blinked her right.

She couldn’t hear him.

“Cute,” the Arkham Knight said. “But pointless.”

Bruce looked over, and stared down the barrel of the Arkham Knight’s gun. Thomas Wayne’s death took him by surprise. But Bruce Wayne would not suffer the same fate.

He would not blink.

_...but it does on occasion rhyme._

So caught up was Bruce in his reverie that he almost did not notice the small chunk of metal that had embedded itself in the brick wall next to the Arkham Knight.

But the Arkham Knight did.

She turned her head to look at it just as it exploded in light of an azure translucence, coating her armor.

And all of the lights on that armor instantly went out. Bruce could hear rotors winding down, grinding to a halt.

The Arkham Knight was helpless statuary, holding a gun on Bruce that she could not fire. And from beneath her heavy, useless armor, Bruce could hear Astrid Arkham crying out beneath, free of her helmet’s electronic distortion:

“What the _fuck?”_

This is when Bruce Wayne looked up.

A shape descended to Earth. A shape of such all-consuming blackness that it seemed to be a lesion in reality itself.

And the first thought that came to Bruce’s mind was every bit as foolish as it was sudden.

_It took him forty-three years, but Zorro finally showed up._

The black shape hit the pavement at the Arkham Knight’s feet before it rose. Two large protrusions from its head, like horns or elongated ears, extended from its head. And a cape spread out behind it like the wings of a great and terrifying beast.

Like a _bat._

Bruce felt weariness and pain, both physical and mental, expelled from every pore in his body. He imagined it as a foul invisible steam, ethereal impurity left to wither and die on the air itself. And that anguish was replaced with… with…

_Exultation?_

Bruce would not have assigned such an adjective to himself even under the best of circumstances, but there it was, blooming in his mind like a field of wildflowers.

Reality had interjected itself both on his behalf, and on the behalf of his beloved wife. From the brink of annihilation, they were granted a sudden and joyous reprieve.

_Is… Is this what it feels like?_

From her position before the Arkham Knight, his daughter looked over her shoulder without moving her feet.

“RUN!” Black Bat yelled. _“NOW!”_


	27. Everlasting Peace

**Chapter 27: Everlasting Peace**

**FAIRFIELD DRIVE**

Bruce was only dimly aware that the lights on the Arkham Knight’s armor were slowly beginning to blink back on.

But he was still completely enraptured by what had just happened. Bruce was amazed by how long he had been in every last sort of pain because, here and now, he did not feel it anymore.

“The virus I infected her with is getting eaten by her armor’s failsafes,” Black Bat said. _“Dad, go!”_

Bruce couldn’t move.

However, the sudden appearance Black Bat was enough to blow at least _some _of his wife’s faculties back into her.

Selina grabbed Bruce’s elbow and started dragging him out of the alley.

_“Beat fuckin’ feet, Sailor!”_

He wanted to stay and help. But he remembered that the crux of Ra's al Ghul’s plan was keeping Cassandra alive. She might have been in for a world of hurt for a stand-up fight, but Black Bat was not in any mortal danger.

Bruce and Selina, on the other hand, very much were.

He staggered after her into the gray light of the street, and then she dragged him to the left down the sidewalk. She got her phone out with her other hand.

“I’ll call Cullen,” she said. “Let’s hole up somewhere until he gets here and we can go back to the house.”

“Okay,” Bruce said, feeling a weird moistness in his voice. “But shouldn’t we go to the hospital?”

“The _hospital?” _Selina asked. “Are you _nuts? _ Hospitals mean ques--”

Selina turned to look at him mid-sentence, and immediately stopped, affixing him with a strange look that he couldn’t immediately identify.

“What?” Bruce asked. “What is it?”

Bruce had to squint through cloudy vision before he determined what the look on his wife’s face meant. The wet mask of blood upon her visage obscured it somewhat, but Selina was looking at him with sheer, dumbfounded shock.

“What?” Bruce asked again.

In reply, Selina simply took the index finger of her right hand, dabbed across his left cheek, and showed it to him.

There on her fingertip, along with a smear of red dust from the exploding Irish pub that they had narrowly escaped, was a bit of moisture turning it into paste.

Bruce was just as surprised as Selina to discover that he was crying.

* * *

As Black Bat watched Bruce and Selina turn the corner out of the alley, she felt an iron grip on her shoulder, and the electronically distorted voice of the Arkham Knight in her ear.

“You… little… _bitch!”_

Her lower back exploded in pain as the Arkham Knight kneed her in the spine. Then her other hand wrapped around Black Bat’s right leg as she was picked up…

...and thrown _through _the wall to her left.

Black Bat’s high tech armor was built to shrug off anti-tank rounds, but the Arkham Knight was much slower than that. The armor kept her alive, but it didn’t shield her from pain. And there was a _lot _of it.

She shook her head loose of the cobwebs amidst the shattered brown brick to find herself on the black and white tile floor of a kitchen. It was relatively small, one for a mid-sized restaurant made for families and tourists.

Black Bat got on her back and watched as the Arkham Knight entered through the hole in the wall.

The lenses of Black Bat’s cowl immediately went to work analyzing the structure and operating system of the Arkham Knight’s armor.

Of course, the problem here being that the analysis could take a while.

She could play evasive. She wasn’t as strong as a heavily armored Astrid Arkham, but she was a damn sight faster.

This had its own problem. Evasive action meant taking her eyes off the Arkham Knight, making the analysis take longer.

She only had one card to play. The Arkham Knight couldn’t kill her.

This meant that Black Bat had to go for the Stephanie Brown Special.

She was going to have to tank an ass-kicking.

Black Bat got to her feet and went for a running kick. Slow and on purpose so she could prepare herself.

The Arkham Knight extended her arm and caught Black Bat with a lariat across the collarbone that flipped her over. She landed face first on the tile and instantly tasted blood.

Yet another iron grip on Black Bat’s shoulder as the Arkham Knight lifted her up and off her feet.

Black Bat ate a right that sent her flying to the stove in the middle of the kitchen. She melted to the floor, infused with pain. But she still kept her eyes on the Arkham Knight, letting the lenses in her cowl do the work.

“You know,” the Arkham Knight said, “Ra’s al Ghul told me that the one thing Bruce tries to drill into the heads of all his child soldiers is… _‘Don’t Make This Personal.’ _ But let’s run down the past few days.”

The Arkham Knight was upon her, and kicked Black Bat in the gut so hard that she skidded a good five feet into the wall.

“I turned your ex-girlfriend inside out and made her puke blood,” the Arkham Knight said.

She bent over and grabbed Black Bat by the arm, flinging her into the far wall so hard that the plaster cracked and dented.

“I shot the first Robin in the back right in front of the man he looked at as a father,” the Arkham Knight said.

She bent over and grabbed Black Bat by the ears of her cowl as she was struggling to her feet. She whipped Black Bat past her, causing her face to collide with the unforgiving metal of the stove top.

“I walked into Wayne Manor and bitch-slapped every last one of you,” the Arkham Knight said. “Hell, I even took a sandwich out of the fridge in the kitchen just because I could.”

The Arkham Knight grabbed a handful of Black Bat’s cape. One wrench, and she brought Black Bat over her head and spiked her face into the floor. It was like she was swinging a sledgehammer to bust up some particularly tough rock.

“And oh yeah,” The Arkham Knight said. “I shot the only man you ever loved out of the sky like I was hunting a pheasant.”

The Arkham Knight clutched Black Bat by the back of the neck and lifted her up off her feet. She brought her in, so they were face to face.

“So I have one question for you, Cass…”

She brought Black Bat in closer. Were they unmasked, and one of them not the manifestation of pure evil, they might have kissed.

“Is it personal yet?”

The Arkham Knight slammed Black Bat’s head into the stove. More blood coming out of Cassandra's mouth beneath the mask, and now some from her nose.

**WHAM!**

_“Is it personal yet?”_

**WHAM!**

_“IS IT PERSONAL YET?”_

The Arkham Knight flung Black Bat to the other side of the room. She collided with the wall ribs first, and as she slid to the floor, Black Bat could have sworn a couple of them were at least bruised, armor or no armor.

The right lens of her cowl had developed a small flutter. It was still functional, but it needed repair.

_Hold together, _she thought as she got to a sitting position.

“This is the part of the game where you try to appeal to my better nature,” the Arkham Knight said as she began her slow advance. “Where you say I don’t have to do this, I don’t have to be a killer, I’m better than I think I am, yadda-yadda-yadda. So come on, Cass. Let’s hear it.”

This gave Black Bat pause. The eyes beneath the mask fixed on the Arkham Knight.

She now had the opportunity to unload upon the Arkham Knight some pure, unvarnished truth.

Given how the last few days had gone, that would be a refreshing change of pace.

So Black Bat looked the Arkham Knight in the yellow eye slits of her gleaming blue helmet and said:

“No.”

The Arkham Knight stopped her advance.

“You and I, we started in the same hole,” Black Bat said. “Bent by the people responsible for us toward taking human lives. The big difference is, I stopped when I found out it was wrong. I escaped. You didn’t. You don’t have the depth, Astrid. You don’t have the imagination. You couldn’t do what I did, and the sad part is, it never even occurred to you.”

Black Bat slowly got to her feet. “Dick and Conner aren’t dead because you’re strong, Astrid. They’re dead because you’re weak. Too weak to do the right thing. I’m not gonna pretend it would have been easy. You’d have had no resources and people looking under every rock trying to find you. You’d have spent years on the street dumpster diving trying to survive. I know because the same thing happened to me, and I have a disability on top of all that. But I made it out on the other side. I was strong. I endured. Because I’m better than you, Astrid.”

She took a step toward the Arkham Knight, her lenses still continuing their analysis.

“I hope all this violence stops,” Black Bat said. “I hope you get the help you need. But before that happens… I am gonna _fuck you up.”_

The Arkham Knight’s arm shot out, clutching Black Bat by the throat. She couldn’t breathe.

“Ra’s al Ghul needs you alive to bear his son,” the Arkham Knight said in a flat monotone. “He never said anything about you being in one piece.”

As she was struggling for air, Black Bat saw two words flash on her cowl’s Heads-Up Display.

**ANALYSIS COMPLETE**

_Well that’s great, _Black Bat thought. Now she needed a way out of here. All of her skills for evasion were useless with a metal grip around her throat.

She knew she needed a miracle.

But Gotham City was known for those every now and again.

For a woman’s voice sounded from the hole in the wall.

_“Yo, CHUDmuffin!”_

* * *

Stephanie Brown had been following Black Bat all night.

She’d gotten a grapnel gun and a pair of binoculars from Selina’s stash in Wayne Manor (with Selina’s approval of course), and kept a steady distance through Black Bat’s uneventful night of patrolling.

In fact, this rumble between Black Bat and the Arkham Knight was the only action she’d seen since the Battle of Wayne Manor.

She stood atop the rubble in the hole in the side of the restaurant as the Arkham Knight had her hand around Black Bat’s throat. Stephanie decided upon a ladylike greeting taught at charm schools the world over...

_“Yo, CHUDmuffin!”_

...and put her hands on the hips of her jeans.

The Arkham Knight looked over at her, and dropped Black Bat to the floor. Stephanie could hear her struggling to get her breath back.

“Stephanie Brown,” the Arkham Knight said.

“The one and only.”

“I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced.”

“I know who you are,” Stephanie said.

Then she reached into the inside of her pea coat, and pulled out the Sig Sauer P365 XL that she had bought here in Gotham in case the deal for the Shadow Density bullet went awry.

She pointed it at the Arkham Knight’s head.

“You’re the bitch I shoot until six million dollars falls out.”

The Arkham Knight threw her head back as she laughed. “You--You think that little pop gun scares me?”

Stephanie did not, in fact, think that her little pop gun scared the Arkham Knight. She’d gone toe-to-toe with Black Manta and whupped his ass. Fine as the craftsmanship by the good folks over at Sig Sauer was, this was the wrong tool for the job.

However, it was downright perfect for shooting out the metal gas line over on the far wall, which just so happened to be connected to the stove by which the Arkham Knight was standing.

But she was going to need Black Bat’s cooperation in this little venture.

She couldn’t come out and say it, of course. Oh, if _only _there was someone in the room who could read body language.

“You’re the one near and dear to our little Cass’ heart, aren’t you?” the Arkham Knight asked. “Being as our mutual friend here can’t die until she pumps out an al Ghul heir, I think I’ll spend all nine months torturing you right in front of her.”

Stephanie rolled her eyes…

...which brought them to the gas line in the wall…

...and twitched the hand holding the gun slightly.

_C’mon, Cass, I hope you get this…_

From what she could see, Black Bat got it. She nodded slightly, and then pulled her cape above her head.

Stephanie opened fire.

She couldn’t hear the gunshot for the heavy FWOOM! Of the wall erupting in fire.

The flame enveloped the Arkham Knight, and the exploding stove blasted her back. The heat made Stephanie slam her eyes shut. The last thing she saw was Black Bat firing her grapnel gun past her.

She was lifted off her feet. First by the concussion of the blast blowing her back out into the alley, then by the arm of Black Bat, reeling her away from the fire faster.

They both hit the pavement of the alley. Black Bat whipped her flame retardant cape over Stephanie’s head as the fire erupted and the restaurant fell into rubble.

With her ears ringing, Stephanie saw Black Bat pull her cape back and get to her feet. She yanked her grapnel hook out of the wall and aimed it skyward. Black Bat held out her hand.

“Way ahead of you,” Stephanie said, though she barely heard her own voice. She put her gun back into its holster beneath her pea coat as she got to her feet, and yanked Selina’s grapnel gun from her belt. She aimed it for the lip of the building’s roof and fired.

Stephanie and Black Bat were both reeled upward. Stephanie was only a little bit worried that the Arkham Knight died in the blast when she heard an electronically distorted scream of fury and anger sound off from the rubble as she ascended.

They made it to the roof, and Stephanie followed Black Bat to the other edge.

For a split-second, the existence of which she would deny even under pain of torture, Stephanie Brown was eighteen again.

Black Bat extended her cape as she jumped off the other edge of the building, the wind beneath it buffeting her descent. Stephanie, for her part, had to fire the grapnel gun into the roof before she jumped.

As she descended, Stephanie heard a loud **BOOM!** and saw the Batmobile decloak beneath her.

Once she was on the ground, Stephanie saw the roof of the Batmobile retract, and Black Bat hop in the driver’s seat.

“Get in,” Black Bat yelled. An order for which Stephanie needed no repetition.

The roof extended, the engine came alive, and the one thing on Stephanie’s mind came out of her mouth.

“This is the first time I’ve ever been in the Batmobile.”

Black Bat didn’t say anything as the dashboard readout helpfully informed Stephanie that the Batmobile had recloaked.

“Jesus, Harper got to ride in the Batmobile on her first night with us. Yeah, she had a concussion, but…”

Black Bat still didn’t say anything. She was smeared from the ears of her cowl to the bottom of her boots with soot and the powder from pulverized bricks. And she was tap-tap-tapping on the controls of the Batmobile with her right index finger.

With that, Stephanie knew that wherever they were going, she was going to get The Talk. The talk about how she had stupidly put her life in danger. The Talk about how she needed to be less reckless and watch herself more.

Stephanie and Black Bat traveled in silence until they got to Wayne Tower, which was halfway across the mainland. Black Bat retracted the roof of the cloaked Batmobile and got out. Stephanie followed.

She knew where Black Bat was going.

Back in the day, when Stephanie Brown had been Spoiler and Cassandra Cain had been Orphan, the two of them used to grapnel race to this balcony on the eightieth floor that was free from the prying eyes of any potential Wayne Enterprises employees within the building.

Yeah, they usually did it in the dead of night, but if Black Bat didn’t care this morning, then Stephanie didn’t care either.

Black Bat won, like she always did, though Stephanie made it to the balcony a couple of seconds afterwards. She hadn’t done this in fourteen years, and her shoulders were sore.

Once she got there, Stephanie saw Black Bat pacing back and forth in agitation, before she turned to Stephanie…

...and collapsed.

Stephanie couldn’t stop the “OH, SHIT!” from coming out of her mouth as she rushed to her side.

She pulled off Black Bat’s mask, and Cassandra’ Wayne’s face was a mess of blood.

“I’m--I’m fine,” Cassandra said with a wobble in her voice.

“No you’re not,” Stephanie said. “Hold still.”

Stephanie liberated a sealed wet nap (which she always carried with her for just such an occasion) from the pocket of her pea coat, and started swabbing the blood off of Cassandra’s face. There were no cuts and nothing appeared to be broken.

Once she was done, she held up four fingers in front of Cassandra’s face.

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Four.”

“Who’s the President of the United States?”

“Sue Dibny.”

“You’ll be fine.”

As Stephanie chucked the wet nap to the side, Cassandra, using her considerable skill, reached into the interior of Stephanie’s pea coat, unholstered the pistol, and rolled back to her feet.

“Oh, you little shit,” Stephanie said as she rose.

“A _gun?” _Cassandra asked.

Stephanie didn’t say anything.

“You followed me all night, and decided at the tail end to go up against the Arkham Knight with the next best thing to a fucking _water pistol?”_

Stephanie thought that was rich coming from someone who planted a tracker in this very pea coat and followed her to an arms deal, but Stephanie continued with her silence.

“You walk blindly into a situation you aren’t prepared in the slightest for, and you use this to do it. You knew better when you were a _kid, _Steph, why don’t you know better now?”

Finally, Stephanie opted to break her silence. She stood up straight, looked down her nose at Cassandra, and said:

“You’re doing it again.”

Cassandra just blinked at her, and tilted her head.

“What?”

Stephanie just repeated herself. “You’re doing it again.”

There was still some confusion on Cassandra’s face. Stephanie sighed and folded her arms.

“I made my way fourteen years across five continents kicking ass and taking names,” she said. “I don’t walk into a situation I don’t know how to walk out of. Including this one. I came in, saved your life, and made it out without a scratch. You don’t have to like what I did, but I’m not Spoiler anymore. I deserve your fucking respect, and you _will _give it to me.”

“Astrid wasn’t going to kill me.”

“You wanna bet the family fortune on that, Miss Wayne?”

Cassandra looked down. If Stephanie weren’t paying attention, she’d think Cassandra was simply pouting.

But Stephanie _was _paying attention. To the dark circles under Cassandra’s eyes. To how the whites of her eyes weren’t whites anymore. They were pinks.

She didn’t want to say it… but she had to say it.

“You’re cracking,” Stephanie said.

Cassandra fixed Stephanie with a furious glare.

“You are,” Stephanie said. “You’ve spent fourteen years against mobsters and gangbangers. You haven’t seen anything like this in a long time, and when you did, you weren’t the one in charge. You haven’t slept. I don’t want to place bets on the last time you ate. And it’s less than twenty-four hours since Astrid Arkham killed the only man you’ve ever loved. Go home and sleep.”

Unblinking, Cassandra took a step forward.

“You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

“You’re right,” Stephanie said. “I don’t. But that goes more than one way, and I don’t want to see you at your worst. Go. Home. And sleep.”

Cassandra fumed at her. “Go back to the hotel, Steph.”

Stephanie didn’t even blink when she shrugged her shoulders. “Fine by me. It’s not like Wayne Manor is safe. Judging from the looks of the woman protecting it, it’s even less so. Go home and sleep.”

Cassandra, apparently at her wits end, looked down at the gun she was holding, before she held it up.

“I’m keeping this,” Cassandra said.

She picked up the Black Bat mask, shook the blood out, and put it back on.

Black Bat ran to the edge of the balcony, extended her cape, and glided off.

Back in the old days, getting down was a cinch. Spoiler had a cape.

Stephanie Brown, in the here and now, did not.

Which meant she’d have to break in through the window and take the elevator down. What was security going to do? Stop her? She knew the CEO.

* * *

**WAYNE MANOR**

Cullen picked Bruce and Selina up forty minutes after she had made the call.

Bruce was still crying.

“Are you okay?” Cullen had asked, more than a little pale at the sight of all the blood.

“It looks worse than it is,” Selina said.

“Not that,” said Cullen as he pointed to Bruce’s face in the backseat. _“That.”_

He couldn’t say anything.

Once they got back to the manor, Bruce and Selina went to the bathroom just off the master bedroom, shed their clothes, and went into the shower to clean each other off as Cullen left new sets of clothes for both of them outside the door.

They cleaned the blood and powdered brick off of each other beneath the running water. Once they were clean, Bruce applied stitches to his wife’s hairline.

And Bruce was still crying.

Selina had a strange look on her face all the while, and he kept trying to avoid her gaze.

They had only just gotten dressed and left the bathroom when they saw Cullen in the hallway, telling them the cops were here.

Bruce and Selina answered questions from two plainclothes officers from the GCPD in the foyer for what must have been forty-five minutes.

_Why did you flee the scene?_

_We were scared and we didn’t know what to do._

_Do you know why this person tried to do this to you?”_

_Not a clue._

_Do you know who this person is?_

_Even less of a clue._

And all the while, Bruce Wayne was _still _crying.

It wasn’t undignified blubbering, not now nor had it been. It was silent. Just tears spewing down his cheekbones into his beard.

“Are you okay?” the lead officer had asked.

“I’m fine,” Bruce replied.

To which Selina had to embellish by saying “It’s been a rough couple of days.”

After the police had left, Bruce did something that he felt he needed to.

He went to the study, turned the grandfather clock to 10:47, and descended into the Batcave.

And there he stood, in the middle of the large concrete circle where the Batmobile once sat… and stared at the field of display cases that contained all of the old outfits that he and his confederates in justice had worn over the years. The armor that they sweated in, bled in, even _died _in.

He beheld the one in the middle. His old Batman armor.

And still… _still… _Bruce Wayne wept.

So transfixed by his armor was Bruce that he did not hear Selina come up behind him.

“When I was, oh, twenty-one or so,” Selina said, “I got food poisoning. Don’t know what it was from, but some terrible stuff was coming out of both ends. Went on for days. I was sitting on the pot on day three with no end in sight wondering, in earnest, whether or not I was dying.”

Bruce turned to her. She pointed at his face.

“So, uh… You dying there, Sailor?”

Bruce rubbed some of the slickness off of his cheeks, and said “No.”

To which Selina reacted with horror.

_“Am _I _dying?”_

Bruce laughed…

...and laughed…

...and laughed.

“It, uh… It wasn’t that funny,” Selina said, trying to make herself heard over Bruce’s laughter.

Which was news to Bruce. He didn’t know what was coming over him, and needed to apply thought to himself as he busted a gut.

This wasn’t some bolt of laughter against his will, which had comprised most of his laughter for the past four-and-a-half decades. Only now, at the age of fifty-one, did he realize that laughing was easy, and he wanted to do more of it. It was fun, and it felt nice. And here he was, indulging himself.

The laughter subsided, and Bruce looked at his wife as honestly as he possibly could. He could feel his eyes widening, and a smile, so foreign to him before, spreading across his lips with no resistance whatsoever.

“History does not repeat itself,” Bruce said, “but it does on occasion rhyme.”

“You said that this morning,” said Selina.

“It’s been on my mind recently,” said Bruce. “I was under the impression… for so many decades… that life is a series of patterns, repeating themselves over and over again.”

He stepped away, moving his shoulders as he tried to assemble his emotions into words. Bruce was not one for the symbolic, for the metaphorical, but the profundity of the day’s events had thrust him to a level to which he was unaccustomed. But this plateau of the unknown was not scary for him. It was exciting. 

“I trained for years,” Bruce said. “I put on that armor. And when I did, I knew that the one thing I wanted more than anything in the world was the one thing I couldn’t do. Batman could not save my mother and father.”

He huffed, and wiped some of the slickness off of his cheeks.

“I spent forty-three years chasing an impossibility,” he said. “But today… Today I caught it. The pattern broke. Everything I thought I knew was proven wrong.”

“I’m, uh… I’m not getting it,” said Selina.

Bruce put his hands on Selina’s shoulders and smiled as a new wave of mist overcame his eyes.

“Someone pulled a gun on Mister and Missus Wayne today,” Bruce said. “They tried to shoot the Waynes in a dark alley, and at the last possible moment… Batman saved them. Or at least something Batman was responsible for. Don’t you see? The cast changed, but the story was the same until the final instant when a happy ending presented itself.”

He took his hands away from Selina’s shoulders, turned, and looked at the armor again.

“I’ve saved countless families over the years the same way we were saved today. And it never sank in. I needed to be told in the bluntest possible terms that what I set out to do worked. I made a difference. The world is better because I was in it.”

He smiled, and felt more of those irritating, damnable tears slide down his face.

“I was a good man in the end,” Bruce said. “I existed, and I mattered.”

He took Selina’s hands. “My parents are gone. And Alfred. And Dick. And it hurts _so _much. But maybe… maybe if I can miss them like this, then there was some good in me after all. Something to build a life around all this time, and not just anger at the world, at myself, because they were gone. I spent so much of my life trying to avenge my mother and father, but I think… I think finding out what I know now is the one thing that would have made them _proud.”_

Selina breathed in, and it caught in her throat. Her eyes went glassy, and she tried to blink it away. Bruce put his arm around her shoulder, she put his arm around his waist, and they both looked at the Batman armor.

“You asked me this morning,” he said. “Would I be Batman again.”

“You have an answer?” Selina asked in a watery voice.

Bruce nodded. “I won’t. It’s not a matter of thinking I shouldn’t, or that I can’t. I… I don’t _want _to anymore. I did what I set out to do. There’s always going to be crime in Gotham City, but I started something special that will be there to meet it. From now until the stars go out. Mission accomplished.”

He took a deep breath. “A stranger wore that armor. Someone who was more anger than man. Someone who pushed everyone away and had to be convinced of the good in anyone. I don’t know that man anymore. He’s lost to me. And I can’t help but think, overall, it’s good that he’s gone. He had his time, but he served his purpose. He can slip away.”

“Well,” Selina said, “he wasn’t _all _bad.”

Bruce smiled. He took his arm away from Selina’s shoulder, and looked her in the eye.

“This is the first time in forty-three years that I’ve been Bruce Wayne. I… I have no idea what he’s like. I hope he deserves all this. This house. This family… _You…”_

Selina put her hands on the side of Bruce’s face, got on her tip-toes, and gave him a kiss into which he dissolved.

It answered his hopes.

In a manner of speaking.

* * *

**THE GOTHAM CITY SEWERS**

Afternoon fell to nightfall as it always did, and the streetlights of the dying city made the fog around them bloom. It lent the mainland and the three islands of Gotham City a kind of magical grandeur that no one who counted themselves among its citizenry thought it even remotely deserved. It was like using confetti and streamers to make a landfill more exciting than it actually was.

Below the ground, however, things were more lively.

In the sewers beneath an empty lot on the corner of Sycamore and X, men in black were shining flashlights upon a truck that had been stolen by Gotham City’s greatest thief… and promptly lost by her one-time sidekick.

One of the men, wearing a gas mask like every last one of his compatriots, lifted a canvas cover off the back of the truck. Inside were twelve blue barrels.

“This is it,” he called out. “This is the Venom. Gas masks on at all times. You don’t want to breathe this stuff in.”

These men in black were not the Squires of the Arkham Knight.

These men in black were trained members of the League of Assassins.

They were all armed with swords, they were all deadly…

...and they were all being watched.

From a catwalk above the sewer, which led to and from separate large outflow pipes, Oracle surveyed the scene.

What had ever happened to the barrels of Venom from the Great Gotham Team-Up twenty-one years before had been a steady curiosity to Barbara Gordon. But it was always one of those things that she’d always meant to follow up on, but never actually did.

Time marched, so did technology, and Oracle was ashamed of herself that it took the death of Dick Grayson, the sacking of Wayne Manor, and the death of Superman for her to use her cloaked mini-drones to scour the sewers and find the Venom.

Bruce said that the Venom, when combined with the chemical amplification reagent stolen from the STAR Labs truck the day before, was unable to be dispersed. If that was the case, then why did the League want it so badly?

Oracle had spent most of the past thirty-six hours in a weird state of guilt. She had harangued Bruce in an attempt to get him to become Batman again, and she had displayed so little faith in Cassandra that she would be able to combat this menace that it shocked even her.

But seeing the League of Assassins beneath her, going through the Venom truck and proving her theory correct, washed away her guilt and her doubts with the sweet satisfaction of vindication.

Oracle arose, scratched the green holographic mask she wore out of habit, and turned to the dark outflow pipe behind her.

“Are you ready?” Oracle asked softly.

From the darkness of the pipe stepped a woman with blonde shoulder-length hair, wearing a black leather jacket and black fingerless gloves. Beneath the jacket was a turtleneck bodysuit that might generously be described as a one-piece women’s swimsuit. Beneath that, however, were fishnet stockings that hugged the woman’s rigid, muscular legs like cellophane around tree trunks.

Oracle had to admire a woman in her late thirties who could rock fishnets that well.

“For Dick Grayson,” Black Canary said.

On Black Canary’s right emerged someone else from the darkness.

She was a black woman, the curls of whose hair wreathed her resolute face. She wore a purple domino mask beneath a purple hood that extended from similarly purple armor that had a white cross pattern upon it, belying a Catholic faith.

Though Helena Bertinelli had essentially retired, giving her superhero identity to her one-time protege (the former Misfit, Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe), she figured she could dust off the old uniform for at least a night.

She loaded a crossbow before she spoke.

“For Dick Grayson,” Huntress said.


	28. Underground Ornithology

**Chapter 28: Underground Ornithology**

**THE GOTHAM CITY SEWERS**

Oracle reached into the pocket of her black leather trench coat, and pulled out a small metal gizmo about the size of a Zippo lighter.

It was The Cone of Silence. She beckoned Black Canary and Huntress to get closer, for within three feet of The Cone of Silence, the Birds of Prey could hear out, but no one else could hear in.

“Gas masks?” Oracle asked.

They both had them. Huntress reached beneath her cape to procure hers from the back of her belt. Black Canary had hers beneath her leather jacket.

“Where’s yours?” Huntress asked.

Oracle said “This mask has one built in.”

“This is gonna screw with the Canary Cry,” Black Canary said, holding the mask in front of her. “You do know that?”

“Use it as a last resort.”

“The Cry, or the gas mask?”

“Take a wild guess.”

Huntress smiled as she put hers on. “I can’t believe you wanted to miss this to go to a faculty bake sale in _Ivy Town,” _she said to Black Canary. “What _happened _to you? You used to be _cool.”_

“Clearly,” Black Canary said, “you haven’t had Ryan’s snickerdoodles.”

She turned to Oracle. “What’s the plan, Oracle?”

Oracle looked down from the catwalk to the members of the League of Assassins seeing to the twenty-one-year-old barrels of experimental Venom below. A few seconds passed as she surveyed the scene.

“They’re moving the barrels from one truck to another,” Oracle said. “The second one’s just beyond that archway. When they’re done, if they’re still holding to the usual League MO, they’ll do a sweep of the area before they take off. During the sweep, we blow the archway, separating them from the truck. I’ll be on the other side. While the two of you are raising merry Hell with the boys in black PJs down there, I’ll use the explosive charges in my coat to blow the truck, and the Venom along with it.”

“How are you getting out?” Black Canary asked.

“Manhole cover,” Oracle said. “Doesn’t matter where it leads. All the bad guys are gonna be on the other side, trying to take on the two of you.”

“Leaving us on the side with all the danger,” said Huntress.

“Leaving you on the side with all the _fun,” _said Oracle.

To which Black Canary smiled. “You know me so well.”

“How are we blowing the archway?” Huntress asked.

“I have charges for that,” Oracle said, feeling the hesitation creeping into her voice. “But… um…”

“You want a bigger boom, don’t you?” Black Canary asked.

The green holographic mask of Oracle smiled, matching the smile of Barbara Gordon beneath. “You know _me _so well.”

Black Canary winked at her.

Oracle turned to Huntress. “You have the crossbow bolts?”

“Sure do,” Huntress said. “Freezers, flamers, tranqs. From the lab of a certain someone’s certain ex.”

That certain ex being Oliver _“Green Arrow” _Queen, one-time long-time love interest of Dinah _“Black Canary” _Lance-Choi. Oracle would have bet honest money that Ollie still considered Dinah’s relationship with Ryan Choi _“a fling,” _even now in their twelfth year of marriage.

“Do you have anything that could blow that archway?” Oracle asked.

Huntress regarded the bundles of bolts attached to the belt of her armor. “Ummmm…”

“Wow,” Black Canary said. “If only there were someone who had a voice that could warp steel and deafen New Gods. That could bring down that archway lickety-split.”

“Okay,” Oracle said. “I guess the Canary Cry _isn’t _a last resort.”

Oracle looked down from the catwalk yet again, planning her moves, before she looked back at her two best friends on Earth.

“Ready?” she asked.

Huntress said “Shit yeah.”

Black Canary just smiled.

* * *

The Birds of Prey scouted a part of the subterranean that was shadowy, and made their descent.

Oracle turned off The Cone of Silence as she made her break to the archway.

Huntress cleared her throat. The ten members of the League of Assassins turned and looked at her and Black Canary, both wearing gas masks.

“Gentlemen,” Huntress said. “For ten thousand dollars, what 1984 Dolly Parton movie starred Sylvester Stallone as a New York cab driver trying to become a country singer? Anyone? Anyone?”

Black Canary turned to the member of the League nearest her. “Do you have an answer, sir?”

So apparently nonplussed were the members of the League to Huntress’ eyes that none of them moved.

“I’m sorry,” Huntress said, “but time has run out. The correct answer is _Rhinestone.”_

“It’s okay if you didn’t see it,” Black Canary said. “It’s terrible.”

“There is, however, a five thousand dollar consolation question,” Huntress said.

She saw Oracle lurking in the shadows, about to make her way through the archway, on the other side of which was the League truck full of the Venom they’d taken.

Huntress smiled. “What 1996 Wes Craven film revitalized the slasher movie genre?”

Oracle was almost to the archway.

“Going once…”

The ten members of the League of Assassins unsheathed their swords from the scabbards about their waists.

“Going twice…”

Finally, mercifully, Oracle was through the archway.

Huntress smiled. She looked at Black Canary and said:

_“Scream.”_

Black Canary inhaled, lifted the gas mask from her face, and let loose.

Dinah Lance-Choi’s metahuman power was a sonic scream so powerful that it had, at one time, successfully defeated an entire platoon of fully armored and trained Amazons in one fell swoop.

Black Canary didn’t have to go that hard tonight. Just hard enough to send the archway through which Oracle had just snuck tumbling down into rubble… and all ten members of the League clutching their ears in agony.

Huntress (who had her specially-made earplugs in) liberated her crossbow from beneath her purple cape, and sent a bolt through the left foot of the League ninja nearest her.

As the unlucky bastard’s hands moved from his ears down to his foot, Huntress looked at the rest of the Assassins, and smiled.

“Now which one of you eligible bachelors wants to dance with me?”

* * *

Oracle ran into the narrow corridor as the archway gave from the force of Black Canary’s Cry.

A similar covered truck to the one on the other side of the archway was parked half a block down. There had to be an outflow pipe that led to a reservoir or a street, so the League could get the experimental Venom above ground.

She reached behind the chest plate of her armor, and retrieved three explosive charges. They were little black plastic circles with a miniature core of Semtex at the center. Not much on their own, but placed along a truck’s gas tank?

Oracle got on her back, and slid beneath the Venom truck. The adhesive on the charges stuck on the metal of the truck’s undercarriage. She did the math in her head. The charges were enough to blow the truck and destroy the Venom, but weak enough that it wouldnt fuck up the sewer itself. Black Canary and Huntress were not on a timer. They could indulge themselves all they wanted.

Once Oracle was back on her feet and briskly jogging down the corridor, she considered setting the timer for two minutes, before settling on three to be on the side side.

She brought up a holographic display from her gloves, and started to set the timer remotely.

Oracle was about to press enter, when something small and hard hit the concrete at her feet. She had to squint to see what it was.

It was one of the charges that she had just placed on the Venom truck’s undercarriage.

Then another.

Then the third and final.

They were being thrown from behind her, over her head.

Oracle waved away the holographic display, and turned around.

There was someone behind her, a silhouette between the two lights above them.

And when that silhouette stepped into the light, Oracle felt fear slop down her back.

He looked completely identical to the last time she had seen him in her Batgirl days. His face handsome and his features chiseled. His gray sideburns had gotten no snowier, and his goatee still did not have a single whisker out of place.

And those green, sunken eyes were still eerily mesmerizing.

He wore a gray suit and white shirt with no tie beneath a green cloak.

And he smiled at her.

“Why, Oracle,” Ra’s al Ghul said. “It’s been decades. So good to see you… on your feet again.”

Oracle didn’t say anything. She was too scared. That last time she fought in these sewers, it had been against Catwoman and she had gotten destroyed. Now? She’d _beg _to have Catwoman back down here again.

“Nothing to say?” Ra’s asked. “Nothing acerbic, or at the very least intelligent? Your reputation for the latter, after all, does precede you.”

Oracle still didn’t say anything.

“Pity,” Ra’s said. “I find a woman’s silence is a mark of wisdom, and now you have strayed too far into my plans to be allowed to live. A true shame.”

Oracle still maintained her silence, but there was a thin vein of anger running through all that fear.

Ra’s al Ghul raised his arms, and his green cloak fell to his feet, revealing a sheathed scimitar at his waist.

He brought out his sword, and pointed it at her.

“Defend yourself, Miss Gordon.”

Oracle brought her twin tonfa out from beneath her black trench coat. She flourished them, and then she advanced.

* * *

Black Canary was one of the foremost martial artists on Earth. On a scale of pure ability, not taking metahuman, alien, or supernatural powers into account, it was widely theorized that the only member of the Justice League who could even hope of defeating Dinah Lance-Choi (and in fact _had _on one memorable occasion)… was Cassandra Wayne.

Huntress, however, was not.

She was formidable back in the day, but it had never been in doubt who the real muscle in the Birds of Prey was. 

For the last few years, however, Helena Bertinelli was happy as a full-time high school teacher, having given the Huntress moniker to her protege, the former Misfit Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe. She’d still trained in the past few years, still kept herself in fighting shape, but without the benefit of getting into actual _fights._

All of this to say that right now, Huntress was getting punched in the face a lot.

She ate a right and fell back into the wall of the sewer. She spat blood, brought her fists up, and started homing in on the two members of the League that were giving her static.

While Black Canary was off a few feet away, dealing with the seven remaining members of the League of Assassins with the fluidity of a waterfall and the force of a Mack truck’s pissed-off dad, the two douchemittens with whom Huntress was currently tangling actually had the Goddamned gall to re-sheath their swords and fight with their fists.

Huntress considered this an embarrassment. One that would have to be rectified with broken bones and lots of screaming.

She threw a left which the one on the right dodged. He sent a knee into her stomach in the same motion. She was armored, so it didn’t hurt that bad, but it set her up for an elbow to the cheek from the one on the right, and _that _hurt like a motherfucker.

Huntress leaned on her backfoot to steady herself, shook the stars out of her head, and went back for another helping.

The one on the right went in for a lunge kick, and Huntress leaned into it as quick as she could, using both arms to hook his knee. She straightened her back, unmanning him slightly, and sent her forehead hard into the tip of his chin. It hurt like Hell, but it was this particular Assassin’s off-button. He crumpled to the ground as though he were a statue of ash in a light breeze.

Which freed her up for the one on the left. Up went her fists again.

He went in for another elbow, which she blocked with her right forearm. They both brought their lefts in for uppercuts, but his was just a little bit faster. Her jaw got jacked, but she rolled with it, whirling around to position herself differently.

The Assassin pressed the advantage, coming in for a flying roundhouse, but Huntress had it scouted. She ducked it, and stood up after his leg passed over her, meaning that by the time he was ready to do anything else, she already had the high ground.

Huntress reared back, and put all of her force into an elbow that connected with the Assassin’s right ear. He went rigid with a strange, squinty look on his face, as though he was trying to sneakily trying to rip a fart in church. Then he just sort of teetered over, finally going limp once he hit the ground.

She stood up straight and felt her spine pop.

_Still got it…_

Huntress called out to Black Canary. “Hey, peel me off one of yours, I’m getting bored over here!”

* * *

Ra’s al Ghul had had centuries to hone his body and mind. To learn every discipline of martial art that had come into fashion in any continent across the entire globe.

His power was astonishing and his speed was blinding.

Oracle had no idea of the material of which his scimitar consisted, but she knew that her tonfa were the same unbreakable polymer that made up the electrified escrima sticks that belonged to the late Nightwing.

And Ra’s al Ghul’s scimitar was taking huge chunks out of them.

Making things worse was that Oracle started on the back foot, and had been there ever since. The fight had made her retreat half a city block in the wrong direction, away from the Venom truck, playing defense the whole time.

The strikes coming from Ra’s al Ghul’s sword were mostly overhand, with some on the side for good measure, but the power behind them was so great that she was exhausting herself trying to keep her guard up.

An Ra’s hadn’t even started sweating yet.

Oracle took the time from trying not to die to notice the sound of rushing water a few yards behind her. If she had to guess, it would be from a massive drain, into which storm water and sewage flowed.

But she had to guess, though. Taking her eyes off of Ra’s meant certain death.

He came in with a high slash.

Oracle knew he was going for her head, and instinctively backed up.

When the scimitar hit what it hit, though, she found too late that he wasn’t aiming for her head at all.

The sharp edge of Ra’s al Ghul’s sword embedded itself in a small steam pipe on the sewer wall, and at such an angle that the steam inside loosed itself on Oracle’s face.

Oracle’s mask protected her.

However, the steam had effectively destroyed the mask. The lenses (which were prescription) shorted out, creating lines of static through which she could not see.

Barbara Gordon yanked off her mask, and immediately caught a roundhouse kick in the face from one of Ra’s al Ghul’s expensive Italian shoes.

The impact was explosive. Barbara felt her right cheekbone shatter. It dropped her to her back, sending both of her tonfa flying. Lifting her head was difficult. Even apart from the pain of her broken face, it felt as though someone had stapled a sand bag to her face when she tried to move her neck.

She looked up with blurry vision, and saw Ra’s bury his scimitar into the brick wall of the sewer.

“There is no dignity in using a sword to slaughter an unarmed opponent,” he said. “In your death, Miss Gordon, I shall give you the respect you deserve.”

The blurry form of Ra’s al Ghul hit a stance from a discipline she could not identify.

“Have at you,” he said.

* * *

The field of ten had now been winnowed down to three.

Black Canary was laying in surgical punches and heavy kicks into the one she was fighting. His head looked like a prune with tumors growing out of it.

Huntress, for her part, was doing… okay.

She had gotten back into the rhythm of fighting as much as she could, but it was clear that Ra’s had brought some of his better guys with him this evening.

He tried to take her out at the right knee with a kick, but she moved with it, kneeling so her kneecap didn’t shatter.

She brought up her forearm to stop the knee that was careening toward her face, but was caught by the follow-up kick to the back of her head with the other leg, which was glancing due to the awkward positioning.

But it was enough for Huntress’ face to hit the ground. It hurt, but it was still defensive. Because she knew that the Assassin was going to go for the head-stomp. It was an advantage, and it had to be taken.

So Huntress brought her hands up behind her head, and caught the incoming foot at the last possible instant.

The Assassin's foot firmly locked in her hands, Huntress got to her knees. She could feel the impact tremor in the ground from the Assassin hopping up and down on one foot in order to stay upright.

Then she performed a side-roll, still clutching his foot.

His foot still kept turning in his hand about half a roll after the rest of his body stopped. And Huntress could feel the man’s ankle shatter through the fingers of her gloves, as though the agonized shriek he let off wasn't enough of a dead giveaway.

Huntress got to her feet, and saw the Assassin screaming, holding his right leg by the knee, staring at a right foot that was turned almost entirely around.

One field goal to the face later, and he was done.

She looked up to see Black Canary finish off the guy she was fighting with a side kick to the face that sounded as though she were trying to tenderize a steak with a brick. He dropped to his knees before he keeled all the way over.

Which just left the one Assassin.

He looked on the young side, in his early twenties. He unsheathed his sword, and looked between Black Canary and Huntress with utter fear on his face. As far as Huntress could recall, neither she nor Black Canary had actually fought this young’un.

What, was this a ride-along with the other nine _real_ League members?

Huntress felt pity for the poor little shit… but her pity only went so far.

She turned to Black Canary. “Hey.”

Black Canary looked at her.

“Do Old Faithful,” Huntress said.

Black Canary rolled her eyes. “Ugh. _ Really? _”

“Yes, really,” Huntress said. “I came out of retirement tonight. You can do Old Faithful. I’m going back into retirement after tonight, and I don’t know if I’ll ever see it again.”

Black Canary huffed. “Fine…”

She stepped in front of Huntress, cracking her knuckles and affixing the one remaining Assassin with a death glare. She got into a stance, the Assassin brandished his sword, taking a tentative advance…

...and Black Canary hit him with a Canary Cry.

It was short, lasting a fraction of a second.

It was nowhere near full power.

It was focused.

And it was aimed right at the Assassin’s stomach.

He dropped his sword as he went still and turned pale. His lower lip quivered as he realized what was happening.

Even from a few feet away, Huntress could hear the Assassin’s gurgling stomach.

Seconds passed as the gurgling got louder…

...and at its apex, the Assassin’ hunched over, and let out a thick projectile stream of brown vomit onto the sewer floor.

Huntress started laughing as the Assassin curled up and went to sleep. He got embarrassed, but he didn’t get hurt.

“Eww,” said Black Canary.

Huntress still kept on laughing. She could feel the blood rush to her cheeks and the onset of tears come to her eyes. It got her every time.

Once she calmed down, she looked over at Black Canary… to see that she had gotten just as pale as the unlucky Assassin on the floor.

“What?” Huntress asked. “You still get all urpy after you see someone puke? After all these years?”

Black Canary looked at her.

“We’ve been fighting for _how many _minutes? We haven’t heard an explosion yet.”

Huntress felt her blood run cold as Black Canary put her finger to her ear.

“Oracle, come in. Oracle, are you there?”

* * *

Oracle’s earpiece was in her mask.

And her mask was now useless.

Barbara had spent so much time and energy keeping Ra’s from slicing her to pieces that fighting him hand-to-hand was like moving underwater.

And she was paying dearly for her lack of speed.

Her left eye was swollen shut. There was the telltale grit on the back of her tongue from a crushed back molar. She didn’t think her nose was broken, but she couldn’t breathe through it. Compounding her respiratory issues was the fact that the blood issuing forth kept seeping into her mouth, complicating breathing from there as well.

And Ra’s al Ghul just… kept… moving.

She unloaded a flurry that was just too slow. He weaved between the punches as though he was dancing, all the while with a pinched, pitying look on his face. Like a dad at his kid’s soccer game, knowing full well that his child was a piss-poor fullback.

And he still wasn’t sweating, the son of a bitch.

Ra’s landed two swift kicks to the ribs. The pain didn’t seep through the chest plate of her armor, but they were enough to get her off balance. And it opened her up to punch to that shattered right cheekbone. Her head exploded in pain, her mouth spewed blood and drool, and a pitiful moan escaped her lungs.

Barbara Gordon had been in the superhero game for well over twenty years. Even being put in a wheelchair didn’t stop her. She was Batgirl once, Oracle now, and had been a fighter the whole time.

But right now, she had a feeling she had never had before. Not even when a gunshot from The Joker severed her spine and left her paralyzed.

Barbara Gordon felt as though she was not going to live to see midnight.

It was an icy feeling in her gut, incomparable to any sensation she had ever felt.

But if she was going out, she was not going to embarrass herself.

A right that Ra’s dodged, and then a left that shared the same fate. She put everything she had into a lunge kick… and she missed.

A faint trace of a smile formed on the lips of Ra’s al Ghul. The bottom half of his body moved in a blur. And Barbara was flat on her back upon the sewer floor before she heard the snaps or felt the pain.

She looked down at herself and saw that Ra’s had, in essence, kicked both of her shins in half. The bloody, jagged end of her left tibia had torn through the leg of her black leather pants.

The pain finally caught up with her, and Barbara Gordon howled. And as soon as she spent her breath, she realized that terror and age-old sensations flooded back to her. For a few moments, she couldn’t breathe in.

Because for the second time in her life, Barbara Gordon was unable to walk.

“There is precious little for you to be proud of in tonight’s events, Miss Gordon. Save one thing.”

Ra’s spread his hands out and presented himself, showing Barbara all of the blood-- _her _blood--on his clothes.

“At least you ruined my suit,” he said.

Barbara got her breath back. And she screamed the one thing that she thought could give her comfort.

**“FUUUUUUUUUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUUU!”**

“These are your last moments on Earth,” Ra’s said. “I will give you one last chance to reclaim at least a sliver of your dignity. Do find some final words befitting one with such a reputation as yours.”

She started panting through clenched teeth, sending stray droplets of blood and saliva into the air in front of her.

“My only regret… is that I lived a good life… because I’m not going to Hell… and I won’t be there waiting for you…”

“I am immortal,” Ra’s said. “I would never have gone there anyway.”

“You… murdered… _thousands!”_

Ra’s al Ghul said nothing. He merely smiled.

“You’re _insane!”_

More smiling. And, to the shame of whatever life she had left, it was now that the tears finally came.

“You… You… YOU STOLE DICK GRAYSON’S BODY, YOU SICK FUCK!”

Ra’s… stopped smiling. His eyelids fluttered over his mesmerizing green eyes. His brow furrowed.

Barbara spat some blood and drool onto the ground next to her, and looked The Demon in the eye.

“Get it over with,” she said.

Ra’s al Ghul, bent down. His steel grip wrapped around her throat. And he dragged her forward a few feet…

...to the sewage drain.

The enormous drain was a brick cylinder that went down fifteen feet. There was a concrete ring at the bottom for city sanitation to walk upon as they checked the rain or human filth that had collected in the middle.

And now Barbara Gordon was dangling above that fifteen foot fall, held there with one hand by Ra’s al Ghul.

Barbara had to think fast. As she struggled fruitlessly to breathe, she figured her only hope was to to fire her grapnel gun into the ceiling as she fell, and just dangle in mid-air until Dinah or Helena found her.

Her fingers clutched at the grapnel gun at her belt…

...and Ra’s saw this.

With his other hand, he reached out, yanked the grapnel gun from her, and tossed it down the drain. Barbara heard the splash it made. She also heard how long it took to get down there.

She saw the beads of sweat collecting on his brow. Could feel the wobble of the one arm holding her up by the throat. And to her shame, she realized that sweat and that strain was the best she could do.

Ra’s let go.

There was no way to save herself. No way to right herself in mid-air.

Her only hope was to hit the brown, foul smelling liquid in the middle of the drain. If her body made contact with the concrete ring, she was dead, but if she landed in the middle, there was still the slightest bit of hope that she could use her arms to swim out.

She didn’t even have time to reflect on how bad things had gotten. That landing in a wide pool of liquid human shit was the best case scenario.

The best case scenario did not come to pass.

Barbara Gordon’s body hit the concrete ring.

Neck first.

* * *

In order for this narrative to progress, one important thing must be made known. Something so important that not only the emboldening, but the _capitalization _of the statement would not be unwarranted.

And that important thing is this:

**BARBARA GORDON DID NOT DIE FROM HER FALL.**

She felt the impact as she fell fifteen feet and landed on the back of her neck, but she did not feel the pain.

She did, however, see her vision funnel into blackness as her mind fell further than her body had, into the black and clingy grasp of a coma.

As Barbara’s vision and thought became consumed by blackness, there was but one thing on her mind.

It wasn’t what Cassandra, what Simon, what Dinah, what her father would do without her on this Earth. It wasn’t even the prospect that, beyond the gulf, she would see Dick Grayson again.

It was the look on Ra’s al Ghul’s face.

The blinking. The furrowed brow. The cessation of that evil, shit-eating smile.

It was strange to her.

Because Barbara Gordon had called out Ra’s al Ghul for stealing the body of Dick Grayson.

And Ra’s al Ghul… had _absolutely no idea _what she was talking about.


	29. You Just Pissed Away Elysium

**Chapter 29: You Just Pissed Away Elysium**

**THE THOMAS WAYNE MEMORIAL CLINIC**

Whatever God he could thank for small favors, Bruce Wayne finally stopped leaking from the face before he got to the clinic.

He walked through the entrance to see Talia and David Hyde in the waiting area. His face was still bandaged, but he had at least graduated to the wheelchair stage of his convalescence.

Talia tilted her head, the malevolent poltergeist of a smile on her face.

“How many have my father and Astrid taken from you now, Bruce?” she asked. “I… seem to have lost count.”

Bruce gave her a glare, before he walked into the private care ward.

Barbara was in bed in hospital scrubs, her face the shape, color, and texture of a blackberry. Her neck was in a brace, and both of her legs were in casts.

Black Canary was pacing back and forth in front of the bed. An unmasked Huntress was leaning against the far wall, staring off into space.

Cassandra was standing right next to Barbara’s bed in a black leather jacket, a black turtleneck, and black slacks. And though the horrifying spectacle of what had been done to Barbara Gordon was right next to her, Bruce, for the life of him, could not take his eyes off of the expression on his daughter’s face.

Because Cassandra Wayne was _furious._

Not upset. Not scared. Not sad.

_Furious._

So furious that she did not notice the intermittent dirty looks that Dinah Lance-Choi was sending her way.

As Cassandra Cain began her career as Orphan. Barbara Gordon set her up with a series of sparring bouts. One of which was against Black Canary.

Black Canary, the formidable martial artist enlightened in every discipline from Krav Maga to Mongrovian Karate, got destroyed in ten minutes while mustering next to no effective offense. But while others would take this sound and utter defeat personally, Dinah Lance extended a branch of friendship to the young Cassandra. Dinah took her abilities so seriously that every defeat offered her the opportunity to learn something.

These warm feelings that Dinah had for Cassandra, however, turned cold upon the defeat of Lady Shiva by Black Bat. For Dinah had been trained by Shiva, even though their attitudes toward taking lives differed, to put it mildly.

Black Canary’s relationship with Lady Shiva was a fraught and complicated one, but Dinah was of the mind that Shiva deserved a more worthy defeat than the late Conner Kent going upside the back of her head at eighty miles an hour.

Dinah didn’t understand. And Cassandra didn’t understand why Dinah didn’t understand. Thus, the friendship ended.

But what Cassandra had done for Bruce that morning was still on his mind. Beneath the canopy of concern for Barbara Gordon, he walked to his daughter, and hugged her as tightly as he dared.

“What’s that for?” Cassandra asked, slightly marble-mouthed.

“I’ll tell you later,” Bruce said.

And then he broke the hug.

“Remember the Venom from the Great Gotham Team-Up?” Cassandra asked. “I read about it. Barrels of Venom under the city for God knows how many years.”

“Yeah?”

“Well… Ra’s has it now.”

Bruce closed his eyes and sighed. It seemed that Barbara was right, and he was planning to use the chemical amplification reagent that the Arkham Knight boosted from the STAR Labs truck yesterday to combine with the twenty-year-old stale experimental Venom.

Which meant he must have had a way to disperse it.

But _how?_

“Then you’re just going to have to stop him, now aren’t you?”

He sensed, by how she was carrying herself, that at least a small portion of the weight had been lifted from her shoulders. This marked the first time in his fifty-one years of existence that the words of Bruce Wayne had ever successfully been used to aid in the emotional well-being of another human being.

For this, he was proud.

He patted her on the shoulder, walked to the wall, and his eyes caught Helena Bertinelli.

She had come from a mafia family. At the age of eight, everyone in the family save for herself, were murdered by a rival organization. She had been taken in by an uncle, Salvatore Bertinelli who lived in Sicily, and from the ages of eight to twenty-one she was trained in martial arts and marksmanship. She came back to Gotham City as The Huntress, and she cut a bloody swath through the Gotham mob until she was stopped by Batman. He saw potential in her to aid in his mission, but her continued reliance on lethal force (a reliance that took her years to break) earned her Black Sheep status.

Just looking at her, Bruce could tell that she hadn’t changed much. Hadn’t mellowed, despite her retirement. Still a bundle of nerves and anger.

And Bruce could not help but feel that this was his fault somehow.

With this in mind, he looked at Helena and said “I’m sorry.”

Cassandra looked over at him with dull surprise. Helena and Dinah, however, looked at him with complete shock, as by his estimation, they had never heard those words come out of his mouth before.

And now that they were out, Bruce felt no different. Yesterday, those words would have had to have been viciously pried from him, but now? Today? After being saved from the Arkham Knight by the specter of justice he had created? Those words were simple. He found that provided one was genuinely apologetic, the words _“I’m sorry” _were a blessing, and not a curse.

“I was not the most decent person when I met you,” Bruce said. “I was unmindful of what you needed as a person. I’m sorry.”

Helena was visibly uncomfortable. “Well… Y’know… I learned a lot from you, so… It wasn’t all bad.”

Bruce shook his head. “Helena, you didn’t need someone who could teach you to throw a better punch. You needed someone to be _nice _to you. Not kind, not charitable, _nice. _ Someone should have been happy to see you. Someone should have valued you the way you should value yourself. The way you should value others. It could have been me. It should have been me. It wasn’t me. And the day will never come when I’m not sorry about that.”

He walked up to her and put his hand on her shoulder. She looked from his hand to his eyes with unalloyed bewilderment.

“My home is open to you,” he said. “For whatever you need, for however long you require. And remember that if a life is measured by the impact it’s had on others, then you will never need to ask how well you did.”

Helena’s expression of open-mouthed _shock _was now one of open-mouthed _horror. _ There was a thin film of tears on each eyeball.

_“Who the fuck are you and what the fuck have you done with Bruce Wayne?”_

A new, female voice form the door. “Am I interrupting something?”

They all turned to see Doctor Patty Jenkins standing there in a white lab coat.

Bruce took his hand away from Helena’s shoulder. “No, Doctor.”

Doctor Jenkins walked in and stood next to Barbara’s bed.

“The most serious matter first,” she said. “Miss Gordon here broke her neck when she fell.”

The room seemed to have gotten colder.

“However,” Doctor Jenkins said, “saying that is a little misleading. None of the vertebrae simply broke in half. Rather a chip from her C4 vertebrae broke off and is just floating around in there.”

“How big is this chip?” Dinah asked.

“Not big,” said Doctor Jenkins. “Think of it as about a fifth of a Rice Krispie. Nevertheless, there’s nothing weighing it down, and if it makes contact with her spinal cord, she’s out from the neck down. I’m keeping her under medical sedation so she doesn’t move around and make everything worse. Now, I know a spinal surgeon at Gotham Methodist who owes me a favor. He should be here in ninety minutes. As far as all things neck are concerned, Miss Gordon is going to be fine.”

And just like that, the room got warmer.

“Moving a little further south,” Doctor Jenkins said, “there is the matter of her shattered cheekbone. A chunk of bone about the size of my thumbnail just broke off. She’s going to need surgery for that as well. But it’s not life threatening, so it’s not our immediate concern. Plus I know a guy who knows a guy, and he can take care of that too. Regrettably, she’s going to need plastic surgery if she wants both sides of her face to match, so that’s up to her.”

Doctor Jenkins took a couple of steps down the bed.

“Which brings us to her legs,” Doctor Jenkins said. “Both tibias snapped clean in half. If these injuries were only slightly worse, I’d strongly recommend amputation. But they’re _not _worse, and I _don’t. _ She needs even more surgery to reset them. And this is where your commitment to all this cloak-and-dagger superhero bullshit _really _gets tested, because I don’t know anyone who can come in and do that.”

“I can,” said Bruce. Because he could.

Dinah rolled her eyes. “Of _course _you can.”

“But,” Doctor Jenkins said, “she’s gonna require the use of a wheelchair for the five months following the surgeries on her legs.”

The relief in the room was practically palpable.

“Y’know,” Doctor Jenkins said, “usually when I tell someone that their friend or relation is gonna need a wheelchair for a while, they aren’t this chipper.”

“Clearly you don’t know the dickens Babs can get up to in a wheelchair,” Dinah said.

“Fair enough,” Doctor Jenkins said. “As far as these injuries are concerned, give it a year after the surgeries, and she’ll be up and around on rooftops like tonight never happened. Provided she wants to, of course.”

Helena caught that last part. “Is there a reason she wouldn’t?”

Doctor Jenkins opened her mouth, and then closed it again. If Bruce didn’t know any better, it looked like Doctor Jenkins had said too much.

“Just so we’re clear,” Doctor Jenkins said. “In a superhero context, doctor-patient confidentiality doesn’t mean dick, does it?”

“No,” Dinah said. “No, it doesn’t.”

Doctor Jenkins sighed. “I ran her blood. Just to be on the safe side. And… Well…”

She pointed at Barbara Gordon and said:

“Your friend here is pregnant.”

...before she left the way she came in, leaving them all to deal with the hand grenade from which she had just pulled the pin.

Long seconds of silence passed that seemed like minutes, all of them staring at the medically sedated Barbara with their mouths open.

It fell to Helena to sunder the quiet.

“Okay,” she said. “Not gonna lie. My first instinct was to get down on my knees and start praying.”

Everyone closed their mouths and looked at her.

“I was under the impression that no one’s been pulling Barbara’s hair and making her scream for the last six years,” Helena said. “So if she’s pregnant… then that means _Jesus _is coming back!”

“Do you think she knew?” Dinah asked.

“Do you think she’d have been out there tonight had she known?” Bruce asked. To which Dinah nodded.

“Why didn’t she tell us she was seeing anyone?” Helena asked.

Cassandra decided to reply with “Because the two of you are nasty.”

“I feel like I should argue with that,” Helena said. “But… y’know… I _can’t, _so…”

“Who’s telling Jim?” Bruce asked.

Barbara’s father, the former Gotham City mayor and police commissioner James Gordon, was spending the rest of the month down on the Florida coast, fishing for marlin.

“I think Barbara should tell him herself,” Dinah said. “Once she’s stable, I mean. I don’t think she’d forgive any of us for doing that without her, now that we know she’s gonna be okay.”

Dinah walked up to Bruce and put her hand on his shoulder.

“We’re staying in town,” she said. “Because you best believe we want in on the ground floor of taking chunks out of Ra’s al Ghul’s ass. Any plan you have, we’re down for.”

“I appreciate that,” said Bruce. “But… I’m not the person you should be saying that to.”

And he looked over Dinah’s shoulder, at Cassandra.

Dinah’s gaze followed his, and her whole body stiffened when she made eye contact with Bruce Wayne’s adopted daughter.

But that stiffness finally subsided.

“Any plan you have, we’re down for,” Dinah said to her.

Cassandra nodded, and said “Thank you,” in a voice most frosty.

And she was the first to walk out of the ward. Bruce, Dinah, and Helena all looked at each other with concern, before they followed her out.

Once they got to the hallway, however, they stopped. Cassandra was standing in front of a familiar face.

It was Simon Baz.

The Green Lantern was in civilian attire, consisting of a brown leather jacket, a white t-shirt beneath, and a pair of jeans.

And he seemed to be blushing.

“I, uh… I heard Bab-- _Barbara _got hurt,” he said. “I was in town, and, uh…”

He just trailed off.

Bruce, Dinah, Helena, and Cassandra all looked at each other… and immediately got it.

_“Nice,” _Dinah said.

“Yeah,” said Helena, eyeing Simon as though she were an assembly line worker at an auto plant looking for loose rivets. _ “Nice.”_

Dinah patted Simon on the shoulder before she left.

Helena did the same.

Cassandra looked at him a while, squinting as though he were one of those Magic Eye pictures from the nineties that hid the image of a sailboat.

“Is that Talia al Ghul back there?” Simon asked her.

“Yes,” said Cassandra, before just walking off.

Bruce sized him up, nodded, and made his own exit without saying a word.

* * *

**GOTHAM HILTON**

Stephanie had ordered room service. The Fettuccine Alfredo. It was… okay. For Stephanie Brown was worldly enough to have actually had pasta in Italy, therefore ruining any and all American attempts at that particular culinary venture

Post-dinner and post-shower, she had taken to pacing back and forth in front of her hotel room window as the television played, wearing pajama bottoms and a black tank top, unable to sleep.

It was like she was under house arrest. Past this room lie Ra’s al Ghul and the Arkham Knight, and all the forces they had martialed. Combined with the fact that she had neither the resources nor the inclination to combat these foes in the way in which they needed to be combatted.

Stephanie wondered what it would take to get her into a costume again, provided of course that there were not only any Spoiler costumes left out in the Gotham wilderness, but that they still fit her after fourteen years.

She rolled this in her mind as a knock came upon the hotel room door. Stephanie looked at the holographic TV set, which was playing an old Peter Fonda movie whose title she could not identify. It was playing at a reasonable volume, thus ruling out an angry visit from hotel management.

Stephanie opened the door.

It was Cassandra.

Neither woman said anything.

Stephanie’s impromptu surface analysis of Cassandra Wayne, standing there all in black, led her to believe that she had, in fact, taken her order to go home and sleep. Her eyes weren’t quite so sunken in as they had been when she saved Black Bat from the Arkham Knight that morning.

But there seemed to be a weight upon her. Standing perfectly motionless, she seemed to be giving off the same energy as a fly trapped between two panes of glass.

_Is this her apology face? _Stephanie thought. _Is this what Cass looks like when she was wrong, _knew _she was wrong, and is now forced by her own conscience to bend the knee and eat some shit?_

Stephanie knew herself well enough to keep her mental receipts open and handy. She knew herself well enough to know that even in an atmosphere of peace, she would press an advantage, and create an atmosphere of hostility.

She held her breath.

Cassandra finally looked from the floor, to her.

“Ra’s got Babs,” she said.

Stephanie’s breath finally left her body as cold terror started skiing down her spine.

“She’s still alive,” Cassandra said, “but… it’s bad.”

Cassandra seemed to wither right in front of her. She slumped and sagged as the air left her.

So Stephanie took all of that resentment that had been building about how even at this late age no one seemed to have any faith in her…

...and put it under lock and key in the back of her mind because Cass needed her help.

She walked into the hallway, but her arm around the shoulders of Cassandra’s leather jacket, and ushered her into the hotel room.

By the time Stephanie was done locking the door behind her, Cassandra had already shed her leather jacket onto the hotel room carpet, and had taken up Stephanie’s task of pacing back and forth in front of the window.

Stephanie watched how she moved. Observed how Cassandra’s musculature shifted beneath her black turtleneck.

That morning, she had told Cassandra that she was cracking. It was still true. But seeing her pacing, Stephanie had to guess that this was more… _immediate? _ Was _that _the word?

“She didn’t have faith in me,” Cassandra said in a watery voice.

Stephanie said nothing.

Cassandra stopped and looked at Stephanie with wet eyes.

“She fought so hard for me,” Cassandra said. “Taught me almost everything I know, and she still didn’t think I could do this job. She took the Birds, tried to get a stockpile of Venom in the sewer away from Ra’s al Ghul, and she didn’t tell anyone.”

“I’m on your side,” Stephanie said softly. “But Babs has seniority, here. She’s a vet. You can’t expect her to clear anything with anyone.”

Cassandra narrowed her eyes. “If Bruce were still in charge, do you think she’d have gone down there on her own?”

_Well, _Stephanie thought, _you got me there._

“You’re absolutely right,” Stephanie said.

Cassandra looked down, a curtain of her black hair hiding her face. Stephanie could see the beige carpet at Cassandra’s feet darken with tears.

Rubbing the eyes beneath that curtain of hair with the edges of her palms, Cassandra said “I… am trying… _so _hard.”

Stephanie walked to her and wrapped her arms around Cassandra, bringing her to the couch so they could both sit down.

With Cassandra’s head resting on her chest, Stephanie ran her fingers through her black hair.

Cassandra sighed, warming the fabric of Stephanie’s black tank top… and Stephanie became all too aware of the fact that, at present, she was not wearing a bra.

Stephanie inhaled the scent of Cassandra’s hair, and caught in a soft reverie in whose grip she had not been held since her teenage years, Stephanie Brown started softly singing.

She couldn’t sing for shit. Hitting them bars was a pastime strictly reserved for the shower… or when she was feeling a certain way, which did not come often.

Stephanie didn’t know why this particular song hit her at this particular moment. She’d been working in France some five years back, and there was this whole retro film noir thing that a certain subset of French youth had clung to at the time, and this one particular song had been a favorite of theirs, played so ceaselessly in her hotel that she’d memorized the words against her will.

Nevertheless, the lyrics came.

_“It begins to tell ‘round midnight… Midnight… I do pretty well, till after sundown… Supper time I’m feelin sad… But it really gets bad… ‘Round M--”_

Stephanie stopped singing when Cassandra lifted her head from her chest and looked at her.

The look in her eyes was one of absolute terror… and Stephanie, for the life of her, couldn’t imagine why.

But Cassandra’s eyes closed. Her posture slackened. Her head moved closer.

The kiss that followed was both leisurely and chaste. It was not designed to fuel passion or sway minds. It was a way to connect, as bald as it was desperate.

Yet Stephanie Brown fell in all the same.

She still had her eyes closed when the kiss broke. When Cassandra started hugging her close. When she whispered in Stephanie’s ear.

_“What’s done, cannot be undone...”_

Stephanie opened her eyes.

What she saw was a Cassandra Wayne whose lower lip quivered. Whose shoulders shook ever so slightly. Who was trying to maintain whatever small shred of dignity she had left.

The woman who was cracking that morning? She was back now.

“Stay here,” Cassandra said. “Till this is done… It’s safer that way.”

And with that, Cassandra got up. She picked up her leather jacket from the floor. She left the hotel room, closing the door behind her.

Leaving Stephanie weirdly amused in spite of herself.

Cassandra Wayne had come here for a sympathetic ear pertaining to how Babs didn’t have enough faith in her to do the job… only to turn around and do the exact same thing to her.

Stephanie reckoned that for someone with as staunch a no-kill rule as Black Bat had, she sure did just slit irony’s throat just now.

* * *

**WAYNE MANOR**

Bruce had parked the Benz in the garage, walked up the main foyer, and entered the East Wing, headed for the master bedroom.

He was cut off, however, by the sudden appearance of Selina coming out of the rec room.

She had cut her hair in the style of her old pixie cut, and her gray streaks were gone.

Bruce just stopped dead in his tracks, beholding her. Bare feet, pair of jeans, and a gray and white buttoned short-sleeved shirt.

It was… It was the woman he married. The woman who had ruined their honeymoon plans by asking him _“Truth or Dare?” _and sending them on an adventurous cross-country odyssey for the next month or so until she finally lost the game. He knew Selina liked to say that she hadn’t aged a day in the past fifteen years, but the evidence was right here in front of him. He had to squint to see the lines on her face that the prior decade-and-a-half had given her. In fact, the black stitches on her hairline were the only immediate proof that the last day or the last fifteen years had even happened at all.

“Well?” Selina asked.

It took Bruce a second to figure out what she was referring to. Then he got it.

“It’s bad now,” Bruce said. “But it’ll get better later.”

Selina nodded. “Poor Babs.”

Bruce sighed, and said “She’s pregnant.”

This widened Selina’s eyes. She didn’t speak right away. She only did so when her eyelids came back down.

“So,” Selina said, “our legally adopted daughter can look at a pregnant woman to whom none of us share blood, and say _‘I’m going to have a little brother or sister or whatever.’ _ Has anyone ever told you that this little family unit we have going on is fucking weird?”

“I’ve caught the gist,” Bruce said.

“Who’s the donor?” asked Selina.

“I don’t think she wants anyone saying until she can say it herself.”

Selina gave him a look.

And if he could trust anyone on this Earth, it was his wife.

“Simon Baz,” he said.

Selina looked off into the middle distance before a smirk appeared, and she said _“Nice.”_

Cue the awkward silence.

“Your hair is beautiful,” Bruce said.

“Thanks,” Selina said, running a hand through it. “I’ve always gone for the pixie cut since I was a teenager. I was broke, and provided you know your way around some clippers, you can do it yourself in the privacy of your own bathroom. Which I did.”

“And the hair dye?”

“Wasn’t feeling the streaks,” Selina said. “I don’t think I will be for the foreseeable future.”

“It looks great on you.”

“I know.”

Bruce tried to walk around Selina to get to the bedroom…

...only for Selina to get in his way.

“Sorry,” Bruce said, and stepped to his left to get around her…

...and she got in his way again.

He looked at her.

She was grinning, eyebrows raised as though she were expecting a tip just for existing.

And Bruce Wayne… had his instructions.

He brought his hands to her face, and his lips locked with hers. Her hands drug themselves down his back. His hands moved from her face, and drug themselves down her front.

Bruce wrapped his forearms around Selina’s thighs and picked her up. Her legs wrapped around his waist. And he carried her into the rec room.

The hardwood floor still had the long scuff marks on it from the day before, when Violet Paige had thrown it at some unlucky Squires. But she’d put it back during the post-rumble clean-up. Which was a good thing, too. Perish the thought of Bruce having to move _a few extra feet to get to one of the three other pool tables!_

He set Selina down next to the pool table closest to him. He tore off his gray blazer and sent the buttons of his shirt flying as he tore it open, before flinging both across the room as though they had offended him somehow.

Clad above the waist in only a white tank top undershirt, his scarred, brawny arms wrapped around Selina, Their lips met. Their front teeth softly bounced off one another. Their tongues entered into aggressive negotiation with one another.

Bruce looked down and saw that the buttons on Selina’s shirt were the cheap metal snaps. With one savage yank, it was open.

She was not wearing a bra beneath.

She had been planning this since he left the house.

He moved Selina’s open shirt down her supple tan shoulders, and haphazardly wrapped it around her wrists behind her, forcing her to stick her bare chest out like the carved wooden mast of a singularly gaudy pirate ship.

Bruce leaned in, dragging his lips and teeth across the collarbone of his frantically panting wife. His hands moved down her cleavage, down her taut and flat stomach, the soft warmth of her breasts seeping into his undershirt all the while. His fingers found the waistline of her jeans, and he deftly maneuvered them open.

She was wearing a pair of red silk underwear.

He thought back to that afternoon, when they had been cleaning blood and red brick off one another in the shower. This pair of underwear was not in the clothes that Cullen had left for them outside the bathroom.

So… she _really had _been planning this since he left the house.

Bruce slid his fingers beneath Selina’s underwear, and…

She moaned. It was a high, tremulous sound. Like the damsel in distress of an old melodrama seeing the moustache-twirling villain for the first time.

He looked at Selina’s face.

Sex was the only time Selina Wayne allowed herself to look needy, so he stopped and enjoyed such a sight whenever he could.

The upturned eyebrows. The half-closed green eyes. The flaring nostrils. The full lower lip softly held between her two rows of white teeth. The…

...pores…

...of…

...her…

...skin.

Bruce Wayne stopped moving.

Selina’s eyes fluttered open. “What is it?”

The events of the past few days, both major and minor, locked into place.

He pulled his hands from beneath Selina’s underwear, an action that caused her to involuntarily shudder and gasp.

Bruce stalked out of the rec room to the study, which would take him down to the Batcave.

With, of course, a brief detour to wash his hands.

* * *

**ARKHAM ASYLUM**

Ra’s al Ghul handed one of Astrid’s Squires the clothes that were stained with Barbara Gordon’s blood, and said “Burn them.”

The Squire took the clothes, bowed low, and departed to fulfill the task asked of him.

Ra’s walked down the halls of the maintenance wing in Arkham Asylum in a jade green suit and white shirt with no tie, his expensive black Italian shoes clacking on the ceramic white tile of the floor.

And as he walked, his mind turned over a new nugget of information.

Barbara Gordon had accused him of stealing Dick Grayson’s body from the Gotham City morgue.

But Ra’s al Ghul had done no such thing.

He had given Astrid carte blanche to spread terror among Gotham City’s superhero set. No doubt she was the one who absconded from the morgue with Grayson’s body for one of her acts of gruesome theater.

Ra’s went past the empty stock rooms to the loading bay.

Something was waiting for him.

In the middle of the loading bay’s concrete floor was a high-tech crate roughly seven feet long and three feet wide. It was white, made of fiberglass, and had a combination lock.

Said combination Ra’s had committed to memory.

This was the fruit of the League of Assassins operation in Brazil.

With a smile, Ra’s al Ghul walked to the lock, and punched in the combination on a metal keypad.

The crate slid open by itself. And inside…

...was the medically sedated body of a woman.

* * *

**BATCAVE SOUTH**

Bruce sat down at the Batcomputer and immediately started bringing up files.

A minute or so later, he heard footsteps behind him, and he swiveled in his chair to look.

It was Selina. She looked… out of sorts. So out of sorts that her white and gray shirt had been unevenly rebuttoned.

With a cold fury, Selina said:

“This… had better… be **good.”**

“Did you hear about the fires in the Amazon?” Bruce asked as he turned around.

“Yeah,” Selina said, some of the anger ebbing from her voice. “I don’t know much, what with all that’s been going on, but I know there’ve been fires in Brazil.”

“Ra’s and the League were behind them,” Bruce said. “And this is how I know.”

With that, he brought up a chemistry formula.

“What am I looking at?” Selina asked.

“This,” Bruce said, “is the chemical combination of the chemical amplification reagent that was stolen yesterday, and the Venom that was stolen tonight. Barbara came to me with a theory that Ra’s and the Arkham Knight were going after the Venom from the Great Gotham Team-Up, combining it with the reagent from the STAR Labs truck, and using the resulting Venom compound to dose the city, and using the unmanned monorail tests tomorrow night to get as many people as possible. I shot the theory down, because the Venom compound would be too thick, and no technology exists presently to disperse it in a way that would dose a big enough number of people. Turns out we were both right… and both wrong.”

“So the tech to disperse the Venom does exist?” Selina asked.

“No,” said Bruce. “But the means of dispersal isn’t technological. It’s _biological. _ Each individual dispersal vector would have to be the size of a human pore, minus fifty percent elasticity. The only way a human pore could lose that level of elasticity would be if it had spent years-- _decades, _even--pumping out chemicals beyond the usual sweat and pheromones.”

Bruce brought up his Rogue’s Gallery files.

“Eight billion people on planet Earth,” Bruce said. “You know how many fit that description?”

“How many?” Selina asked.

“Just one,” said Bruce. “And her last known whereabouts… were in Brazil.”

Bruce brought up the file he was looking for so Selina could see it.

He turned around just in time to see his wife lose all the color in her face.

* * *

**ARKHAM ASYLUM**

Ra’s al Ghul had set out with a simple goal: destroy ninety percent of the human race to _save _the human race.

Even he knew it was easier said than done.

But the human race, stubborn and disappointing entity that it was, had insisted upon saving itself. Pollution had gone down. Carbon emissions dwindled. Even the damned ice caps were coming back.

Ra’s had run the projections. As loathe as he was to admit it, everything was going to be fine.

Which meant that Ra’s al Ghul had nothing left to do with his immortality except settle old scores and seek revenge, the pettiness of which he would not admit even to himself.

Gotham City had been the bulwark against which he had dashed himself time and time again. This city meant failure.

And Ra’s al Ghul could not brook failure, least of all from himself.

But this was where the woman in the box came in. And looking upon her, he smiled to himself.

She had skin the color of mint ice cream, and in her age, her fiery red hair had streaks of brown running through it where others would have streaks of gray.

Her modesty was protected by a bodice of brown, dying leaves.

Ra’s al Ghul would secure the line of The Demon with Cassandra Wayne. He would see to the death of the pretender Aaliyah Ramsey.

And he would destroy Gotham City.

He would disperse the Venom compound, using tomorrow night’s unmanned monorail test to dose as many people as possible.

The citizenry would be given strength beyond their imagining, and homicidal insanity beyond their reckoning.

Gotham’s people would tear each other to shreds. Rivers of blood would flow in the streets. A city of eight million people would become a ghost town overnight.

And Ra’s al Ghul would use the body of Poison Ivy to do it.


	30. Best Coffee in Gotham

**Chapter 30: Best Coffee in Gotham**

**CITY HALL**

In the hour after dawn, as reporters from across the country stood on the sidewalk away from the thin cover of fog that had had shrouded the street, Mayor Alysia Yeoh held a press conference.

She dressed smart in her blue suit. Equally smartly dressed were Police Commissioner Renee Montoya on her left, and Deputy Mayor Harper Row on her right.

“Tonight,” Mayor Yeoh said into the bank of microphones at the podium, “we will be running unmanned tests on Gotham City’s new monorail system.”

She waited for something. Be it questions or applause, no one could say. Then she continued.

“All thirty six cars we have available at this time will be pulled by one locomotive across the track that spreads across the entire city. Bleake Island, Founders Island, Miagani Island, and the mainland. This fast, affordable, dependable public transit system will connect Gotham City’s citizens in a way nothing has before.”

A few clicks from the reporters’ camera phones.

“These tests will run all night,” Mayor Yeoh said. “So at any time, the people of this great city can look up, past the fog line, and see the ingenuity that marks Gotham’s New Age. That signifies Gotham’s rebirth. That calls to the world entire that we yet live. That our tragedies do not define us. That Gotham City… is a place of hope.”

* * *

**WAYNE MANOR**

Bruce Wayne was also up at dawn. Though to be more accurate, he had not slept.

The breadth of Ra’s al Ghul’s plan was made known to him. Using the body of Pamela _“Poison Ivy” _Isley, he would disperse a volatile Venom compound, utilizing tonight’s unmanned tests of the new Gotham City monorail to get as many people as possible. The citizens of Gotham City would succumb to homicidal insanity and tear each other apart.

During his sleepless night, staring up at the ceiling, Bruce ran scenarios and projections.

None of them were favorable. If there were a doomsday scenario, this was it.

He looked over at his sleeping wife. Bruce leaned over to her and kissed her on the cheek. She stirred, but did not awaken.

Bruce got out of bed. Forgoing a morning shower, he put on a white bathrobe that was hanging from a hook next to the bed, and left the bedroom to go into the East Wing hall.

He found himself in the cramped study that led to the Batcave.

But the Batcave was not his destination today. Why would it be? It had been invaded two days earlier. It was not safe. And both he and the rest of the people in his family needed a safe place for what was to come.

He walked to the row of books next to the desk, and pulled one off the shelf. A large, hardback and leather-bound volume.

_Finnegan’s Wake _by James Joyce.

It had been a joke between himself and the late Alfred Pennyworth. No one reads _Finnegan’s Wake. _ They just get to chapter three and put it back on the shelf. It had more buyers than readers by a wide margin.

Bruce opened the book to chapter three.

That was where the book ended. The rest had been hollowed out. Inside was a small, blank envelope.

Bruce took it out, set the rest of the book down on the desk, and opened the unsealed envelope with the edge of his thumbnail.

He liberated the single sheet of white folded paper inside, and opened it. All it bore was a familiar, flowing cursive forming but a scant four words.

_“Best Coffee in Gotham.”_

* * *

**THE THOMAS WAYNE MEMORIAL CLINIC**

Cullen Row had also been up with the sun. Today, however, he had precious cargo.

Aaliyah Ramsay got out of the front seat of the Towncar almost before the vehicle itself had come to a stop. She looked in through the open window after she had shut the door.

“You’re not coming in?” she asked.

“Who’m I gonna talk to?”

“Good point.”

“Take your time,” Cullen said. “I got a bunch of podcasts loaded up, I’ll be fine.”

“See ya,” said Aaliyah.

Cullen nodded, and brought up the holographic display on the car’s radio. He scrolled through the files, found a podcast discussing the NFL, and turned it on.

He hadn’t spaced out for more than a minute before a knock came on the driver’s side window.

It was Cass.

She looked like crap.

Cassandra had opted out of her usual leather jacket in favor of a black wool trench coat, with a plain white t-shirt and a pair of jeans beneath. She looked haggard and drawn. There was even a sleep crusty in her sunken left eye.

Cullen rolled the window down.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she said back in a distant voice.

“You here to see Babs?” Cullen asked.

Cassandra nodded. “You bring Aaliyah to see her parents?”

“Yup,” said Cullen.”

Cassandra nodded yet again. “Go ahead and take off. I’ll take Aaliyah back to the manor. And what kid doesn’t want a ride in the Batmobile, right?”

Cullen turned this over in his head. “Okay, but… what am I gonna do with the rest of my day?”

“Go to the RH Kane building and surprise Jason?”

Cullen could feel last night’s dinner turn into a wave pool within his stomach. “Why I didn’t lock the door behind me, I have no fucking clue.”

“Go,” Cassandra said. “Have fun. You never know when you might get the next chance.”

Cullen thought that just _sounded _loaded. She was forty-eight hours removed from watching Conner Kent, her former boyfriend of so many years, be shot out of the sky. But he was wise enough to not actually say that to her face.

“Okay,” Cullen said. “Thanks.”

Cassandra nodded slightly and smiled faintly.

He rolled the window back up, put the car in Drive, and pulled away.

Of all the members of Bruce Wayne’s old Bat-Network, Cullen Row was the last one to see Cassandra Wayne before the shit went down.

* * *

Aaliyah tugged at the collar of her gray sweater.

“Where do we go after all this?” she asked.

In the waiting area of the Thomas Wayne Memorial Clinic, Aaliyah sat across from her mother in the waiting room. Her father, his face still bandaged, sat in a wheelchair next to his wife.

Talia sighed. “Michigan,” she said.

Aaliyah scrunched up her face. _“Michigan?”_

“What’s wrong with Michigan?” David asked.

“It _snows _in Michigan.”

“It snows in North Carolina as well,” said Talia.

“Yeah, but not as much as in _Michigan,” _Aaliyah said. “Right next to the Great Lakes in a state that’s shaped like a glove.”

She put her hand to her chest, looking for all the world that she’d fit right in knitting in a Jane Austen novel. Ready for the fainting fit that came with a sudden onset of vapors.

“My dignity and temperament prohibit me from becoming a Michiganite,” Aaliyah said.

_“‘Michiganders,’” _said David. “They’re called _‘Michiganders.’”_

Aaliyah sighed. “And they don’t even know which words sound stupid and which ones don’t.” 

Talia smiled at this. “How fares your great adventure in Wayne Manor?”

“I, uh… I kinda like it there.”

Talia’s green eyes flared. _“Do _you, now?”

“Yeah,” said Aaliyah. “Robin’s cool.”

“You mean Carrie Kelley?”

“Yeah,” said Aaliyah. “Cullen and I get along. Selina… Selina’s a trip.”

Talia nodded gravely. “And the Cain girl?”

Aaliyah blinked in confusion. _“‘The Cain Girl?’”_

Talia let a small jet of air out of her nose. “Forgive me. I mean Cassandra.”

“Oh,” Aaliyah said. “She’s alright. I mean, we haven’t had a whole bunch of opportunities to talk what with what’s been going on. But…”

Aaliyah stopped when she noticed that her mother seemed a little too interested in what she was saying.

“What?” Aaliyah asked.

Talia fluttered her eyes. “I have bore witness to many of my father’s plans. The One-Who-Is-All was one of the ones in which he took the most interest. She was to shepherd the League of Assassins to a new age of glory. But now? Now she is a costumed vigilante who refuses to kill.”

She leaned back in her seat.

“I wonder,” Talia said, “if any trace of the old killer still yet remains. If, when properly pressed, will she do what needs to be done?”

“She’s a Bat,” Aaliyah said, suddenly uncomfortable. “I don’t think she’s killing anyone. Conner was killed a couple of days ago. Barbara got destroyed last night. If she were going to start clapping on fools, now would be the time. But she’s not.”

“She was designed from the moment of her birth as a weapon of great lethality,” Talia said. “I would not be so sure.”

Aaliyah got a chill.

Last week, Aaliyah Ramsay lived a boring-ass life as a high schooler in North Carolina. Her mom was a bartender, her dad worked construction, God was in His Heaven, and all was right with the world.

Today, she lived in a large house with eccentric genius superheroes. Her hometown was gone, and her mother and father were killers.

Looking at Talia al Ghul, who was once Victoria Ramsay, turning over these thoughts visibly, Aaliyah had to wonder how much of the killer within her mother still remained. Had it always been there? When she was yelling at her when she was a kid for spilling apple juice? Helping her get ready for spelling tests? Shopping for clothes for cheerleading practice?

Aaliyah squeezed her hands open and closed. “I’m gonna go wash up.”

Talia nodded. Aaliyah got up, and went to the ladies room down the hall.

She took her time, getting the soap in between her fingers. She turned off the faucet, let her hands redden beneath the air dryer, and left…

...only to see Cassandra standing there in the hallway.

“Hey,” Aaliyah said.

Cassandra nodded sullenly. She reached into the pocket of her wool trench coat, pulled out a can of Soder Cola, and held it out to Aaliyah.

Aaliyah’s eyes lit up. “Caffeine!”

She took the can from Cassandra, opened it, and took a couple of greedy gulps.

“Thank you,” said Aaliyah.

“Don’t mention it,” Cassandra said. “How are you holding up?”

“Fine,” said Aaliyah. “It’s just… I’m coming to grips with how weird it is to have two supervillains as parents.”

“I see.”

“But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“I would, actually,” Cassandra said in a flat voice.

Aaliyah felt the fool, the umpteenth incarnation of the great Boo-Boo Lama. “Yeah… Yeah, I suppose you would.”

She took a couple more gulps from her soda. “You here to see Barbara?”

“Among other things,” Cassandra said. It was only now that Aaliyah saw how tired she looked. She felt one of those internal twinges of sympathy, right there beneath the rib cage.

“Walk you back?” Cassandra asked.

“Sure,” said Aaliyah, thinking it was more of a favor to Cassandra than it was for her.

They slowly walked down the hall next to each other.

“So… how are you holding up?” Aaliyah asked.

“The truth?” Cassandra asked. “It’s hard.”

_“Ow!”_

Aaliyah felt a sudden pain in the side of her chest.

She looked down.

The reason she got that sudden pain… was because Cassandra Wayne had just jammed a gun into Aaliyah’s ribs.

Aaliyah took a moment from her pure terror to notice that the gun looked like a Sig Sauer, if her dad’s gun magazines were to be believed.

“It’s just… too… _hard,” _Cassandra said.

They both regarded each other for a few seconds in absolute silence. Aaliyah could see Cassandra’s lower lip quiver. Could see her shoulders visibly shake. She wasn’t just tired. She was fucking _nuts._

“Here’s the cover story,” Cassandra said. “There’s an emergency at Wayne Manor. If you do anything that tips off your parents, I will shoot them both in the face right in front of you.”

“I don’t think you will,” said a woman’s voice from down the hall.

Cassandra yanked Aaliyah to her so hard that she dropped her soda, sending it fizzing to the tile floor. She held the gun out over Aaliyah’s shoulder, aiming it down the hallway.

Talia and David were at the other end, the former standing, the latter in his wheelchair.

“Honey,” David said, “you done stepped in it.”

Aaliyah could feel the shuddering breath that Cassandra let out.

“Put the gun down,” Talia said, neither her voice nor her face betraying emotion.

“How many times have you given villain speeches in your life?” Cassandra asked. “How many times did you tell Bruce that surrounding himself with people was only going to make him weak and soft? Well… You were right. On just the _off-chance _my family survives what’s coming, I will give birth to your half-brother and put your daughter in the ground. The only question is whether or not I do that second one _right fucking now!” _

Aaliyah could hear the tears get Cassandra’s voice all thick.

“Conner’s dead. My… my _mom _is in there clinging to life because of what _your dad _did to her! I can’t do it. I… I just can’t…. If either of you try and stop me, all three of you are getting bullets. I swear to God.”

“I give you my word,” Talia said. “If you put the gun down now, you will be the only one who dies. If you put the gun down, I will not flay the flesh from Bruce Wayne’s bones. If you put the gun down, I will not separate Barbara Gordon’s head from her body. If you put the gun down, I will not boil Stephanie Brown alive in her own--”

**BANG!**

The apocalypse sounded from the gun in front of Aaliyah Ramsay.

Cassandra Wayne just shot Talia al Ghul.

The bullet caught Talia low in the abdomen off to the right. A thin line of blood spurted, darkening her shirt as she fell to the floor.

“MOM!”

Aaliyah’s first instinct was to bolt for her mother, but the hand of Cassandra Wayne caught her by the back of the neck _hard, _sending bolts of agony all the way down her back.

Cassandra walked her down the hallway. David slid from his wheelchair to the floor, tending to his bleeding, groaning wife.

“Baby?” he asked. _“Baby?”_

David Hyde looked up…

...just in time for Cassandra to kick his head into the wall so hard that it left a dent.

Again, instinct kicked in to kneel down and help him, but Cassandra’s grip overrode it.

As they made their way into the waiting area, Aaliyah saw Doctor Jenkins. She had her hands up, her eyes wide in terror.

From behind them, she could hear her father.

“I will gut you for this, Cain! DO YOU HEAR ME? _ I WILL GUT YOU FOR THIS!”_

They were out in the open air outside the clinic, now.

**BOOM!**

The sound in the air tore itself apart as a black metal monstrosity seemed to appear out of thin air.

The Batmobile had just decloaked.

“Get in,” Cassandra said.

* * *

**ANNABELLE’S CAFE**

From his haziest initial memories to the horrifying year that he turned eight years old, Bruce Wayne had gone with his parents to Annabelle’s Cafe on Miagani Island.

It was nothing special, not a haven for the rich. Thomas and Martha Wayne had no small amount of fame in Gotham City, so when they went, they went in hooded sweatshirts.

Annabelle’s Cafe had closed down during those years abroad when Bruce was training to be Batman, and Alfred Pennyworth, who had been running the Wayne personal finances, bought the building.

He figured that Bruce couldn’t bear the thought of the place being torn down and turned into a Foot Locker. Some soulless place that no one loved.

And he was right.

Bruce Wayne stood there now, in a hooded sweatshirt himself, amid the dusty counters and the old black and white tile floor that was now more gray and even-darker-gray.

When he was a child, he remembered breaking away from his parents as they ate their eggs and looked out the window at the passers by, and standing next to the window, staring at a light-up poster display. It was painted in a retro art deco style, and depicted a woman, her head thrown back in smiling delight, holding a cup of coffee. And above her head, the simple legend:

_Best Coffee in Gotham!_

Bruce had never had the coffee at Annabelle’s, so he could not make any statements toward the veracity of the poster’s claim. The memories of his early childhood were the haziest he possessed, as he had not honed his mind to the photographic perfection needed to be The World’s Greatest Detective. But if he had to make a guess, he’d have figured that the style of painting promised an air of unreality that the young Bruce Wayne would have found appealing.

But standing there now, at fifty-one years of age, something else captivated him about the poster.

Namely, the woman depicted therein.

For this woman in question had a black pixie cut and inviting green eyes.

Bruce stood there, still, trying to conjure what this meant.

It seemed that the nascent romantic longing of the young Bruce Wayne manifested later in life. Namely in marrying a woman who looked just like the permanently ecstatic coffee drinker on this poster thirty years later.

And wouldn’t _that _be something interesting to go over in therapy?

He stepped toward the light-up poster display and put his hands up to it.

“Sorry,” he said to the painted woman on the poster, his apparent first-ever crush.

He unhooked the front of the display and set it on the floor, exposing the open hollow where the lights would have been.

There were no lights inside.

What was inside, however, was another unsealed white envelope, which he picked up and opened.

That familiar flowing script again, making up two words.

_“Night One.”_

* * *

**THE PEMBROKE BUILDING**

Aaliyah Ramsey was in the passenger seat of the Batmobile, a madwoman behind the controls.

Cassandra Wayne steered the vehicle in stealth, weaving in and out of traffic, speeding up around corners, terrifying Aaliyah down to her very core.

It seemed that Cassandra was more than amenable to murdering Aaliyah on Ra’s al Ghul’s say-so. Was this how she was going to do it? Driving so madly in traffic that it would successfully result in giving a fifteen-year-old girl a heart attack?

The Batmobile came to a sudden stop, the screeching of the tires hidden by the vehicle’s stealth system. Aaliyah could hear the loud **BOOM!** as it decloaked.

The roof retracted.

“Get out,” Cassandra said.

Aaliyah climbed over the black metal side of the Batmobile, and to the curb in front of a tall building. Even in her state of terror, she still marveled as the Batmobile drove itself half a block before turning invisible again.

The spell was broken by Cassandra viciously grabbing her by the waist.

“Hold on,” Cassandra said.

She got a gun-looking device from the depths of her trench coat, and fired a grappling hook into the air. Aaliyah could barely see it lodge itself to the roof of the building, before both she and Cassandra were yanked skyward.

The ascent was so jarring and rapid that Aaliyah forgot to swear or even scream.

Their landing atop the building was a rough one. Cassandra landed on her feet. Aaliyah didn’t.

Aaliyah shook the stars out of her eyes, and the first thing she saw was an exit door.

She bolted for it before she could tell herself to stop.

Aaliyah didn’t get four steps before the iron grip of Cassandra Wayne latched to the back of her neck. Her agony came out of her mouth in a slow hiss.

“I don’t need a gun to end you,” Cassandra said. “Run and I will catch you. Hide and I will find you. And if you pull shit like that again, I will bend your legs back at the knee and make you _crawl _before I kill you! _Do you understand me?”_

Aaliyah was in too much pain to say anything. She just nodded.

“Good,” Cassandra said before savagely throwing her down. “Now sit there, and don’t fucking move.”

Aaliyah sat cross-legged on the roof while Cassandra went over to some weird metal box thing that didn’t look like a part of the building.

She wasn’t at the right angle to say… but the pointy things on the other side looked an awful lot like missiles.

Cassandra got a pair of blocky black glasses out of her trench coat, put them on, and went to the keypad on the side. She punched something in, before coming back around, crossing her arms, leaning against the thing with the missiles… and glaring at Aaliyah.

“A few days ago,” Cassandra said as she took her glasses off and put them away, “the Arkham Knight set up a whole bunch of missile installations around the city on just the _possibility _that one of them took out Mother Panic on her glider. Ever since then, the GCPD’s been taking them down. I figured all the missile installations have connections to Ra’s and Astrid if their control panels were tampered with like I just did. So… we’re having company in a bit.”

Aaliyah didn’t say anything to that. She just tried to look literally anywhere else for the next few minutes as her heart pounded and Cassandra stared at her.

Then Cassandra spoke again.

“I will say this, though. I shot your mom, and your first instinct was to run in and save her. I stopped you, but… Your instincts are sound. They’re good to have.”

She seemed to expect Aaliyah to say something, but she held her tongue. Then Cassandra spoke again.

“Under a different set of circumstances, I’d be thinking long and hard about getting you in a costume. Put those instincts to use for the greater good. But alas, ‘tis not to be.”

Cassandra scratched the side of her nose. “You wanted to save your family today. But you know what…? I want to save mine. And the sad fact of the matter is, I barely know you. The vow I took to never kill another human being doesn’t mean shit if breaking it means my people get to stay alive. But… you need to know I’m sorry it shook out this way.”

The fear gave way in Aaliyah. Crumbled beneath black and syrupy hatred.

If the opportunity presented itself to watch Cassandra Wayne die, she would take it.

A few more minutes passed in silence until Aaliyah heard it. Heard the sound she heard in a million movies.

The THUPPA-THUPPA-THUPPA of an approaching helicopter.

It got louder and louder as it approached. So loud she couldn’t stand it. Aaliyah clenched her eyes shut and screamed, but it was so loud she couldn’t hear herself. She felt her hair blow back.

But the whirring of the helicopter died down, and she opened her eyes.

The helicopter was on the roof with them. Two people had stepped out, and Cassandra was standing between Aaliyah and their new company.

The one on the left, Aaliyah recognized. It was the monster in blue armor that she had first seen a few nights ago making mincemeat out of her dad at the Gotham Royal. The Arkham Knight. But her blue armor had been blackened a little between then and now, as though she’d stood beneath a jet of fire.

The one on the right, though, she had never seen before. It was an older fellow with green eyes and funky facial hair. He was wearing a green cloak above a black suit. For some strange reason, Aaliyah thought that this was what a professional wrestler would wear to Sunday services.

The one on the right looked over Cassandra’s shoulder and affixed Aaliyah with a gaze.

“Hello, Aaliyah. I am your grandfather.”

So this was Ra’s al Ghul.

The hatred for the three of them became an inferno within the chest of Aaliyah Ramsay. She tried to think of a fittingly gory and graphic punishment for Cassandra Wayne, Ra’s al Ghul, and Astrid Arkham, and could not fathom any cruelty that was not unjustified.

But it was at this point that she tried to stop herself.

Between the two of them, Aaliyah’s parents were guilty for the deaths of hundreds. Maybe even thousands. And her grandfather, this vile thing before her, was responsible for casualties beyond measure. The road at her feet was well-trod, and even with her impending doom, she had to stop herself from going any further.

_Is this how it starts?_

“I want your word,” Cassandra said. “I do what you want me to do, and no harm comes to my family.”

Ra’s sighed. “I can only guarantee their safety to the extent that they do not get themselves involved. I cannot promise they won’t do anything foolish in their attempts to stop me, but I will promise that any among my or the Arkham Knight’s number who does harm to anyone in your adoptive familial orbit, even in self-defense, shall suffer gruesome and permanent reprisals. This, I swear.”

Cassandra peered at Ra’s. “You know… I can tell that you’re not lying right now.”

“Because I am not,” Ra’s said. “This is how much the Line of the Demon means to me.”

Cassandra nodded, pulled out her gun, and walked toward Aaliyah, pointing the weapon at her.

“Do I do it now?” Cassandra asked.

Aaliyah’s heart forgot to beat, the stupid thing.

“No,” Ra’s said. “Illegitimate usurper though she may be, Aaliyah is still the Granddaughter of the Demon. Ceremony must be maintained. It is… the least I could do.”

Aaliyah took a break from being petrified to hate Ra’s al Ghul with her whole heart once more. After all, that crusty motherfucker did just talk about her like she wasn’t there.

“I figured as much,” Cassandra said, attempting to put her gun back beneath her coat.

This attempt was stopped by the Arkham Knight.

“Hey,” she said, her voice coming out with electronic distortion. “Huh-uh. Give it here.”

Cassandra slowly walked to the Arkham Knight, and handed the piece to her, along with a heaping helping of stink-eye.

“Hmmmm,” the Arkham Knight said. “Sig Sauer, huh? This the gun Stephanie Brown pointed at me yesterday?”

Cassandra nodded.

“I seem to have lost one of mine in that diner,” the Arkham Knight said. “Being as you and your band of merry shitheads are protected by the word of the great Ra’s al Ghul, I can’t start collecting trophies. Looks like the Sig here is just gonna have to do.”

Cassandra glared at the Arkham Knight. “You feeling alright Astrid? You’re looking a little crispy.”

“I killed Nightwing and Superman,” the Arkham Knight said. “I’m the Jason Voorhees of superheroes. I may look crispy, but I feel _great!”_

Aaliyah had heard tell of Cassandra Wayne’s considerable speed and strength, but this was the only time she had ever seen proof. In the time it took Aaliyah to blink, Cassandra sent her fist into the Arkham Knight’s helmet with a sound like an aluminum bat hitting a home run.

The Arkham Knight being as well-armored as she was, her head didn’t even move, and Cassandra was left to shake a couple of beads of her own blood off of her hand.

“And what did you hope to accomplish with that?” the Arkham Knight asked.

Cassandra didn’t say anything.

“Enough of this,” Ra’s said. “Come.”

Cassandra walked over to Aaliyah and brought her to her feet as the helicopter started up again.

Even under the long pall of her own death, Aaliyah found a kernal of delight that popped without her consent.

_At least I’m getting a helicopter ride…_

* * *

**THE CORNER OF ROCHESTER AVENUE AND B STREET**

On his first night fighting crime in Gotham City, Bruce Wayne was not Batman. He had no gadgets. He had no car. All he had had on that evening to protect his identity and his person was a balaclava and leather jacket respectively.

Crime in Gotham was so bad that the Falcone family did their gun deals in plain sight, not giving even a fraction of a damn whether or not a cop car rolled by. And Bruce was more than happy to ruin their evening.

The corner of Rochester Avenue and B Street on Bleake Island, next to the old auto plant, had been the scenic locale for that night’s event. He had hoped to take at least one of them out stealthily, but a clumsy effort to sneak around a trash can put paid to that. The whole thing turned sideways, and Falcone’s goons started shooting at him. One of those stray bullets had even found its way into one of the bricks on the side of the auto plant.

A brick that, over thirty years later, no longer had a bullet hole.

The red brick seemed loose from the mortar surrounding it. Bruce, securing the hood of the sweatshirt over his head with his left hand, pulled the brick out of the wall with his right.

Behind this brick was yet another unsealed envelope, this time folded into thirds.

He plucked it from the wall and opened it, the piece of paper therein yet again bearing words in a familiar flowing cursive.

_“Gotham Steel.”_

Well, that one was easy. It was the auto plant from which Bruce had just pulled a brick. And unless he was mistaken, Bruce was pretty sure he owned the building.

The nearest door was unlocked. He navigated the dusty and dilapidated hallways and found the factory floor.

The wide expanse of the factory floor was bare, save for the stray candy wrapper and dog turd… and the huge and hulking piece of yellow machinery off near the left wall that Bruce could not identify.

An even more curious development was the fact that, judging from the green light that was shining on the right side, the building (or at least the factory floor) still had power.

Bruce found a black button on the same side as the shining green light, and pressed it.

With a thundering metal shriek, the piece of machinery _sloooooooooooowly _started sliding to the right. Bruce stepped further back to see what he had just accomplished.

The piece of machinery had slid back to reveal a narrow brick staircase leading down into the floor of the factory.

Bruce got a small flashlight out of his hoodie. He didn’t bring his phone. He didn’t know if Ra’s had the ability to track him.

He counted thirty steps into the bowels of the Earth before he came to a small cement landing a few feet long that led right to a red brick wall.

And upon this brick wall one word was written in white spray paint with no punctuation at the end.

**“SPEAK”**

“Hello,” Bruce said.

A moment passed, before the bricks in the wall started shifting to the side, revealing a narrow metal door.

And Bruce smiled.

During his fifth year as Batman, when his wars with The Joker were at their height, Bruce had given his butler, valet, confidante, and father figure Alfred Pennyworth a task.

To found a base of operations that was secret even from Bruce Wayne himself. For if Batman were ever captured, his will ever circumvented by chemical or supernatural means toward the goal of revealing his secrets, there needed to be a place that both Alfred and Robin could go whose location could not be revealed by Batman.

And this was it.

But if Bruce himself needed to make use of such a place, then Alfred must leave clues, the answers to which only he would know. And those clues led him here. To this abandoned auto plant on Bleake Island.

A voice came from the walls.

The voice of Alfred.

_“Voice print recognized… Welcome, Master Bruce.”_

Hearing his voice again after so long made his insides swell. Bruce wanted Alfred to see the man he’d become in spite of his own anger and pig-headedness. That the dream he had for the son of two of Gotham City’s elite, viciously taken before their time, finally came true. That the world, in it’s cruelty, did not break him. And that Bruce, in his foolishness, did not break himself.

Bruce said, in a whisper so soft that someone standing next to him would have been unable to hear:

_“Thank you, Alfred…”_

* * *

**GOTHAM HILTON**

Gotham City had bookstores that delivered to hotel rooms.

Who knew, right?

Stephanie Brown woke up this morning knowing that several kinds of shit were going to be hitting several different brands of fan, and it was going to happen soon. And here she was, wasting away in a hotel room, out of the loop.

She’d never wanted to go back to her Spoiler days, but here they were yet again. Coddled and protected from herself. She might do something stupid, after all.

So fuck it. She was staying right here where Cassandra told her to stay. She just didn’t have it in her to fight it anymore.

Stephanie couldn’t recall the last time she’d read for fun. Sounded like a lark, really.

She found a bookstore that delivered, and paid with a credit card online.

There Stephanie sat on the couch, the holographic television tuned to the channel that was _actually about _the hotel for background noise as she started hacking and slashing her way through Stephen King’s _Under the Dome._

She had just gotten to the part where King name-dropped Soledad O’Brien and Wolf Blitzer for that mid-2000s verisimilitude, when a knock came on the hotel room door.

Maybe it was Cass.

Maybe it was the bookstore delivery girl who came back to report a problem with her method of payment. Stephanie _did _pay with a credit card under a fake name.

She got off the couch, straightened out her jeans and her green t-shirt, checked her pocket for cash, and went to the door.

As she approached, she opted to look through the door’s peephole to see who it was.

This objective proved difficult, however.

For there was not a face on the other side of the peephole.

There was a _badge _on the other side of the peephole.

She blinked, rooted to the spot with horror, before she slowly opened the door.

It was the real deal, alright. GCPD issue. They hadn’t changed the design for the damn things in the fourteen years she’d been away.

So transfixed was she by the sight of the badge that she took no notice whatsoever of the person holding it.

“Natalie Venora,” the officer holding the badge said, “you are under arrest for aiding and abetting an illegal firearms sale within the limits of Gotham City. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn. That's a, uh... That's a shitload of cliffhangers.
> 
> Only a real asshole would take a break and leave their readers hanging after all that.
> 
> ...
> 
> ...
> 
> ...
> 
> Anyway, I'm going on a break. I need to map out the last six chapters of Earth 803 and my fan writing career perfectly. And the next chapter's gonna be long anyway, so I might need an extra day. Yeah, no Thursday chapter this week.
> 
> SEE YA ON MONDAY!


	31. Thou Wouldst Make a Good Fool

**Chapter 31: Thou Wouldst Make a Good Fool**

**SCHLESINGER STATION - NOW**

Gotham City’s new monorail system had a series of aboveground stations from which to pick up passengers. Being as tonight was the night for the unmanned tests, there were no passengers tonight.

What there was, however, was a media circus. The mayor, Alysia Yeoh, was there. She gave a speech. She posed for the cameras. All while an inspection crew gave the locomotive and the thirty-six cars behind it a once over.

It should be noted at this juncture that, after the events that were to follow on this chilly, foggy October evening, every last member of the inspection crew was fired.

The state-of-the-art electric engine of the locomotive roared to life. All thirty-six cars shuddered behind it. And the unmanned tests were on, and set to go all night.

Though _“unmanned” _is a bit of a misnomer.

As soon as the monorail was over the water of Gotham Bay, the floorboards in all thirty-six connected cars were removed by the Squires hiding beneath them. One per car…

...save for car one, which had two. A member of the Squires named Robert Dries (who had accidentally killed another Squire named Jeremy French during a fight a few days ago) had been hiding beneath the floorboards with a medically comatose Poison Ivy for hours now.

He brought her up from the depths of car one and, with assistance from the Squire who had hidden in car two, took her to the locomotive.

The equipment came next. The gas masks. Mini-keg after mini-keg of Venom compound, designed to give the whole city homicidal insanity.

Robert Dries didn’t have the engineering or chemistry know-how to say how all of this worked. All he was supposed to do was put the hoses that connected to the machine that in turn connected to the mini-kegs of Venom compound into Poison Ivy’s back. Then blow out the windows so the gas she produced could get to the city. And sedate her every twenty minutes. The Venom compound would flush out her system, taking the sedatives with it. A conscious Poison Ivy would be a cranky Poison Ivy, and no one wanted that.

Of course, he wouldn’t need to worry about that for long. The Venom was so corrosive that, roughly two hours into the administration of the steroid to the Gotham City populace, Poison Ivy would go into cardiac arrest and die. Two hours would be enough, however, to drop this shithole town once and for all.

Oh, and set the bomb, of course. Word from the top was that Cassandra Wayne had surrendered both herself and Ra’s al Ghul’s granddaughter, but that didn’t mean the rest of the superheroes in Gotham were lying down on this one.

The bomb was Shadow Density, and placed next to the controls of the locomotive. The yield was, in the words of the Squire who made it, _“Motherfucker Unlimited.”_

Robert jammed the hoses that connected to the Venom machine into Poison Ivy’s spine. Each hose ended in a two inch spike. But Poison Ivy was so out of it that she made no sound.

And then he just left her on the ground. The Venom compound would seep from her skin, through the open windows of the locomotive, and out into the city. Minutes after that, Gotham would be awash in its own blood.

Robert Dries shot out the windows, letting their wind in, and waited for the monorail to get to Founders Island.

That was his cue.

* * *

**GOTHAM CENTRAL LOCK-UP - NOW**

Time had gotten away from Stephanie. She’d been down here on the ground floor lock-up for hours. How many, she could not say.

She had taken to pacing in front of the bars, as opposed to pacing in front of the window in her hotel room at the Gotham Hilton.

Stephanie tried to assemble how this all went wrong, and she just wasn’t getting there.

She had been arrested, cuffed, marched into the elevator and out the lobby at the mercy of incredulous stares from the hotel staff and her fellow guests.

Stephanie had been thrown into the back seat of an unmarked car. The only way that she knew that she’d been arrested and not kidnapped was that there was a radio up front, that the arresting officer occasionally answered.

After that…

The sound of a metal door opening and closing. Footsteps on the brown linoleum between the two rows of cells.

It was the guy who arrested her.

The cop was a handsome black man, built well enough to fill out that blue suit he was wearing.

He pulled at his black tie. The faint smile on his face only exaggerated how tired he looked.

The cop stood on the other side of the bars and scratched the back of his neck.

“You look like you have questions,” he said.

Stephanie glared at him. “Yeah. Several. First being: _‘What the fuck is going on here?’”_

“Could you be more specific?” the cop asked.

“Okay,” said Stephanie. “I was arrested, okay? That’s where we start. I covered my tracks perfectly like I always do, so I shouldn’t have gotten caught. Then I get here. I wasn’t fingerprinted. I didn’t get a mugshot. I still have my belt on, my laces are still in my shoes. I even have the nail clippers in my pocket. Not to mention the fact that I’m in my own wing of the lock-up in Gotham’s Central Precinct on Founders Island. What, did everyone stop drinking? Did Gotham City’s purse-snatchers just suddenly develop consciences? Eight cells in here, and I’m the only occupant. So I ask again, softly but with great emotion: What the fuck is going on here?”

That faint smile on the cop’s face just got a whole lot bigger. “No one said you weren’t smart, Stephanie.”

Stephanie wasn’t prepared for that. All she could do was blink.

“How do you know my name?”

“Because Cass told me,” the cop said.

He reached his hand between the bars of her cell.

“I’m Duke Thomas,” the cop said. “Also known as _‘The Signal.’”_

Stephanie blinked again, still shocked. But at least she shook the guy’s hand.

Duke took his hand back and used it to rub his face.

“I,” Duke said, “am _so _exhausted. While you and Cass and the rest of the Bats have been having their little soap opera, I’ve been out there, in costume and out, trying to keep the city safe by my damn self. You hear about that bank robbery on Exley?”

“No,” Stephanie said.

_“Exactly,” _Duke said.

He rubbed his face again, and looked at her with puffy eyes.

“Now,” Duke said. “A lot of things are going to happen in a short amount of time. I’ve done my part, and now I get the sweetest reward I could possibly ask for. You know what that is?”

“What?” Stephanie asked.

“I get to go home and go to bed,” Duke said. “If I’m not dead to the world for at least twelve hours, I will be surprised. I love my wife more than anything, but this is gonna have to be one of those times where she just has to cover for me with the kids.”

Stephanie still just stared at him. But eventually the words came.

“You said you’ve done your part,” she said. “What _was _your part?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Duke asked. “I brought you _here. _ You’re in the game. Not that you weren’t before. Just on a whole other level now.”

“Okay,” Stephanie said. “So… can you let me out? Now that I’m… _‘in the game _’ and all?”

Duke sighed.

“I could do that,” he said. “But Cass told me if I did that knowing you could get yourself out, you wouldn’t forgive her _or _me. And I just met you, Stephanie. I can’t handle the pressure of someone I just met never forgiving me.”

Stephanie could not believe it. All that could come out of her mouth was:

“Ugh… _Dude!”_

Duke smiled again.

“Call it a show of faith,” he said.

And out the door he walked.

* * *

**THE BLEAKE ISLAND BASE - FOUR HOURS AGO**

Harper Row was the last one to get there.

Seeing her, Bruce knew why.

Because she had arrived in her old Bluebird costume.

The first to see her were, naturally, Tim Drake and Violet Paige. Tim was at a holographic keyboard over on the far wall, trying to interface the greater network of the Batcomputer into the base on Bleake Island beneath the old auto plant. The secret base that the late Alfred Pennyworth knew about, but Bruce Wayne did not.

Tim’s mouth hung open. Violet just laughed.

“I’m just happy it still fits,” Bluebird said. “We’re doing superhero shit tonight, right? I need my superhero gear.”

She looked off into the corner, where Huntress and Black Canary were also staring at her.

“Remember when Babs offered me a spot on the Birds?” Bluebird asked. “Think it still stands?”

“I thought you were a politician,” Black Canary said. 

“It’s not for me,” Bluebird said. “Never was. If I’m alive after this, my letter of resignation’s coming in the next few days.”

“I thought you had a kid,” said Huntress.

“Well,” said Bluebird, “I better make her proud of me, then, huh?”

Huntress and Black Canary looked at each other.

“Okay,” said Black Canary. “Babs made the offer, so that’s an aye from her. It’s an aye from me, too.”

“And I’m in costume taking hits, so I get a vote, retirement or no,” said Huntress. “I vote aye.”

“So it doesn’t matter how Charlie or Zinda votes because they’re not here,” Black Canary said, before looking at Bluebird. “Congratulations.”

Bluebird smiled, and said _“Tight!” _before walking over to them.

Bruce noticed they were all in their little fiefdoms.

Violet and Tim were over at the far wall. The Birds of Prey were on the opposite wall. Selina was at a rack of gadgets waiting for him. Carrie was sitting cross-legged on the floor playing a game on her phone. Jason and Cullen were at the back, in the shadows, speaking quietly and animatedly, yet holding hands all the while.

That… certainly answered some questions his wife had. Good for them.

But he knew why they had sequestered themselves.

The Mole.

They didn’t trust each other.

Bruce knew in his bones that there was no mole, but he had no evidence to convince them.

Looking over the room, however, told Bruce that there were people missing.

He walked over to Selina, and welcomed her with an embrace and a kiss.

“Have you heard from Cassandra? Aaliyah? Stephanie?”

Cullen seemed to have heard this.

“Last time I saw Cassandra, it was this morning,” he said. “Took Aaliyah for a spin in the Batmobile after she talked to her creepy-ass parents.

“Well,” Bruce said, “if Aaliyah’s with Cassandra, she’s in good hands.”

Tim called out. “Bruce? We have a problem here.”

“What is it?” Bruce asked.

“I’m trying to integrate this base’s system with the power grid, but there’s something blocking it.”

“Do you know what it is?” Bruce asked.

The Alfred VI that was in Tim’s equipment decided to speak up.

_“Indeed we do, Master Bruce. It’s a video file. From this stage of diagnostics, the only way to achieve successful integration would be to play it.”_

“Do it,” said Bruce.

A square image hovered above Tim’s holographic keyboard.

“Can we enlarge it?” Selina asked. “So everyone can see it?”

“Sure,” Tim said. “Just give me a second.”

The square image enlarged, taking up half of the wall.

It was an image of Cassandra, her chest obscured by a triangular Play symbol.

There was a brief lull of silence that was broken by Carrie Kelley.

“Holy shit!” she said.

Everyone looked at her.

“What is it?” Black Canary asked.

“You see that broom next to her shoulder?” Carrie asked.

Bruce did. The handle of said broom was green.

“Yeah,” said Jason.

Carrie pointed to the other side of the room… where an identical green broom was located.

“She was in here,” Carrie said. “And those bruises on her face are a hell of a lot more vivid than they were when I saw her last. She made this video a couple of days ago.”

“Good detective work,” Violet said. “Anyone ever tell you you have a future in this game?”

“Ugh,” said Jason. “Don’t encourage her.”

Carrie looked at Jason with fury. _“Eat ass, Jason!”_

Cullen giggled at this. His reply was soft and to himself, but Bruce was able to hear it.

_“Too late,” _Cullen said.

Bruce… did not need to know this.

“Bruce,” Carrie said. “How did _Cass _know about this place a couple of days ago when _you _didn’t even know about it until this morning?”

That… was a good question. He remembered the envelopes he found… and all of them were unsealed. When he replied to Carrie, he was only vaguely aware of the smile that was breaking out across his face.

“When I was Batman, and someone was hiding this from me, I would have known,” he said. “And… It’s the job I gave her.”

He felt Selina take his hand.

_“Shall I play the file?” _the Alfred VI asked.

“Yes,” said Bruce.

The triangular Play symbol disappeared. The holographic image of Cassandra Wayne took in a breath, and let it out.

_“Hello,” _Cassandra said. _“If everything has gone according to plan, there are eleven people in this base right now. Bruce, Selina, Babs, Dinah, Helena, Violet, Tim, Harper, Jason, Cullen, and Carrie.”_

Bruce could feel the mood in the room ice over.

Everything had not gone according to plan.

Because Cassandra had mentioned Barbara, and Barbara was at the Thomas Wayne Memorial Clinic, medically sedated and in between surgeries.

_“Which means,” _Cassandra continued, _“that Aaliyah, Stephanie, and myself are _not _there. And by the time I’m done, you’ll understand why.”_

Cassandra folded her hands at her waist and took a deep breath. 

_“Someone told me recently that there are two words in this language that we share that open doors and bring smiles. They gladden hearts. They rip through lost causes and turn them into fighting chances. And those words are… _‘I’m sorry.’”

Cassandra took another breath.

_“I owe you all an apology,” _Cassandra said. _ “I am not going to pretend that, by the time I’m done, all of you are going to be happy with me. Some of you aren’t going to forgive me for what I’ve done. But it _needed _to be done. An explanation is in order, and here it is.”_

Another deep breath. She looked into the camera, and at all of them, with intensity.

_“For the past few days, ever since all this started, someone in this room has been feeding information to Ra’s al Ghul and the Arkham Knight.”_

* * *

**ARKHAM ASYLUM - NOW**

In the rear of one of the buildings on Arkham Island that made up the now-defunct Arkham Asylum, there lie the Inter-Patient Therapy Wing.

It was a collection of four cells, all facing each other, each with heavy plexiglass instead of bars.

Though she had no way of knowing it, Cassandra Wayne sat cross-legged in the very same cell in which Basil _“Clayface” _Karlo died, set aflame by The Undying, with an assist by a mind-controlled Zatanna Zatara.

It was weird, though. Cassandra could have sworn she smelled burnt popcorn in this cell.

Ra’s al Ghul and the Arkham Knight had ferried herself and Aaliyah Ramsay to Arkham Island by helicopter. The Arkham Knight had taken Aaliyah somewhere else. Ra’s had taken her here.

And the sound of expensive shoes on concrete told Cassandra that Ra’s had come to Inter-Patient Therapy yet again.

A casual look up revealed that Ra’s was flanked by two members of the League of Assassins, both head to toe in black, with masks covering the lower halves of their faces.

And he had a smug, imperious look on his face. Like a Deep South Evangelical about to yell _“Bingo!”_

“This city,” Ra’s said, “will murder itself. Its people will be given strength beyond measure, and madness to match. Friends will drive their fists through each others’ skulls. Mothers will tear their children in half with their bare hands. And upon this bloody ruin, you will drive a dagger into Aaliyah Ramsay’s heart. The final casualty in a city that has been dying in the fourteen years since Game Seven. Then you shall do your part in preserving a great lineage. _ My _lineage. The Line of the Demon.”

Cassandra went back to looking at her legs. A moment of silence followed.

“Have you nothing to say, Miss Cain?” Ra’s asked. “Even The Detective was more talkative, and I would have thought he was the very limit of surliness. Surely you have something to tell me. Something about how I won’t get away with this. About how your friends will come and save you.”

Cassandra took a deep breath…

...let it out…

...and looked The Demon in the eye.

Early on in her acting career, Cassandra had played Goneril in a production of _King Lear. _ A man by the name of Kevin Ulrich played Lear himself, and he imparted to her some wisdom.

He had said _“About an hour before the first show, imagine yourself physically picking up all of the things you’re thinking about, putting them into little boxes, and then walking away. That method shit is for the birds. You don’t serve the character. You serve the __situation. __ You can’t react when you’re tripping over the notes you took or the other crap you’re thinking about that you brought on stage with you. Once you lock all that stuff away, then you can do the job with purity.”_

For the past six days, she had put the most important things she knew in little boxes and walked away. In one of the most trying times in the lives of the people she knew, the people she called friends and family, she essentially operated with half of a mind.

And now… it was over.

Now it was time to open all the boxes, take out all she knew, and start playing with it like it was Christmas morning.

Because she had forced the endgame.

So the former Orphan, the former Batgirl, the former Black Bat, the former Cassandra _Cain, _and the current Cassandra _Wayne _looked into the hypnotising green eyes of Ra’s al Ghul…

...and started laughing.

It was loud. It was freeing. She could feel the blood rush to her cheeks. She felt her mind brighten, her heart swell.

Ra’s just tilted his head and squinted at her.

“And what… may I ask… is so amusing?”

Just the way he said it, too. Like she brought him shrimp cocktail instead of shrimp scampi. It just made her laugh even harder.

But she knew she had to get herself under control. She stuffed her laughter back down her throat, though it took her a bit.

“T--Two things are gonna happen,” Cassandra said. “I don’t know in what order, but…”

She held up the index finger on her right hand.

“One,” she said. “Someone is… is just gonna beat the living _fuck _out of you. It’s gonna be _glorious. _ It sucks I won’t be here to see it. Which brings me to…”

She held up her middle finger in conjunction with the index.

“Two,” she said. “Aaliyah and I are leaving this place. And when we do, we’re walking out the front door.”

Ra’s al Ghul tilted his head to the side.

“Are you placing your faith in your friends?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Cassandra, grinning.

“Should you?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“I beg to differ,” Ra’s said. “How well can you trust them? I have it on good authority--”

Cassandra finally managed to wipe the smile off of her face.

“Stop,” she said with some bass.

And Ra’s stopped.

Cassandra scratched her nose.

“Is, uh… is this the part where you tell me about the _mole?”_

Ra’s blinked. His body language screamed that he didn’t see that one coming.

“You know?” he asked.

“Sure I do,” Cassandra said, grinning yet again.

She stood, putting her hands in the pockets of her trench coat, still grinning.

“Ra’s… _I’m _the mole.”

* * *

**BURNSIDE - SIX DAYS AGO**

“Cass,” The Signal said, “whoever did this? They know who we are.”

A silence fell over the interior of the Batmobile as Black Bat and The Signal sped toward Wayne Manor with a brutally beaten Mother Panic in the rear of the vehicle.

Black Bat felt a tremor in her hand as she looked upon the buildings of the hipster haven of Burnside giving way… to…

“Huh,” Black Bat said.

The Signal looked at her. “What is it?”

Multiple scenarios swarmed in Black Bat’s head. Each more terrifying than the last.

“Duke… whoever did this… they don’t have a plan.”

“What do you mean?” The Signal asked.

“Violet was shot down over Burnside.”

“What about it?”

“If they had a plan,” Black Bat said, “they’d have shot Mother Panic down over Miagani Island.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because that’s where Violet _lives,” _Black Bat said. “The easiest way to do it would be to set up whatever the hell it was that shot her down near The Pike, wait for her to get home, and do it _that _way. But she was shot down over Burnside, which is nowhere _near _Miagani Island.”

She took a deep breath, getting her thoughts in order.

“I’m guessing a missile took her glider down. Short range, surface-to-air, not a whole lot of yield, being as Violet wasn’t blown to pieces. If that’s the case, there will be an installation somewhere in Burnside. And if you find that, you’ll find them all over the city. Placed there for coverage. Because whoever did this didn’t have a plan beyond shooting Mother Panic down wherever she might be at a given moment.”

The Signal didn’t say anything.

“Duke,” Black Bat said, “if they’re just winging it, if they’re impulsive enough to set up missiles all over the city just to get _one _target, then a lot of innocent people are gonna die.”

The Signal still didn’t say anything. The aura of worry emanating from his body said more than a monologue could.

Cassandra Wayne licked her lips behind her mask, weighed her options, and said:

“I have an idea.”

The Signal looked at her. “Is it a good idea?”

“No,” Black Bat said. “It’s fucking insane.”

The Signal sighed. “Given the resources we know they have, this is the first sign of supervillains in Gotham City since Game Seven. I’ll take an insane idea over no idea at all.”

“Okay,” Black Bat said. “If they don’t have a plan… then how about we _give _them one?”

* * *

**GOTHAM CENTRAL LOCK-UP - NOW**

“Okay,” Stephanie said to herself. “If I were a way to break out of jail, where would I be?”

She looked down the drain of the sink in her cell. She looked up the faucet. She ran her fingers along the sides of the mirror. She looked down the toilet bowl. She looked in the toilet tank. She ran her hands beneath the soiled mattress of the cot sticking out of the wall. She looked beneath the cot itself, and…

“Hey, now,” Stephanie said.

Beneath the cot was a black cylinder that was about as tall as an Academy Award statue, and about as round as a coffee cup.

And there was a note taped to it.

She wrapped her hands around the cylinder, and picked the deceptively heavy object up.

Stephanie cradled the cylinder in the crook of her left arm, and yanked off the note with her right hand.

The note consisted of two words:

_“YOUR INHERITANCE.”_

Beneath those words was a kiss-print of a pair of women’s lips done in black lipstick.

Why, it was almost like the note and kiss-print she herself had left for Cassandra the morning after they fought and… did _other _things to each other. Multiple times, in fact.

“Cass,” Stephanie said softly. “You extra little shit.”

What happened next was something that Stephanie found, to say the least, _interesting._

It would have been strange enough that the cylinder she was cradling started _talking. _ But when it did, it did so with the voice of the late Alfred Pennyworth.

_“Voice print recognized,” _the Alfred VI said. _ “Good evening, Miss Brown.”_

At which point the cylinder she was cradling collapsed into a thick sludge, and started running down her forearm and up her bicep.

Stephanie wanted to scream, but for some reason, she could not will the noise.

_“I am detecting an elevated heart rate,” _the Alfred VI said. _ “If it aids you, I recommend you close your eyes for the duration of the application. I shall tell you when it’s done.”_

All at once, the urge to scream vanished.

Because Stephanie knew what this was.

It was the nanite slime. The supersuit. The thing that Stephanie called, during the conversation she had had with Cassandra at Tammy’s Diner, _“The Venom Symbiote.”_

But… she still closed her eyes, though. The nanite slime was cold and icky.

As it spread down her side and up her neck, she remembered other things about the conversations she had had with Cassandra that sweaty, bloody, painful, enchanted evening.

She remembered that Cassandra liked to read supervillain dossiers for fun.

Cassandra was particularly taken with the exploits of The Joker.

Cassandra said that The Joker’s most devious plans relied on the appearance of him getting caught.

And Cassandra had wondered aloud why the _good guys _couldn’t do that.

* * *

**ARKHAM ASYLUM - NOW**

“Duke Thomas has a very funny relationship with light,” Cassandra said. “He can look into both the future and the past. He can also see radio waves, which is the part everyone forgets… except _me.”_

She scratched her nose as she looked through the plexiglass at Ra’s, his brows furrowed in skepticism.

_“Radio waves,” _she said. “Arkham Asylum, which was supposed to be abandoned, was lit up like a Christmas tree with _radio waves. _ From there, it was easy to hop on the frequency they were all using and find the person who was in charge. It was Astrid. From there, I used a modulator to disguise my voice, and guide her where I needed her to go. It was obvious from how she dealt with Mother Panic that she was too impulsive for a plan, so I gave her one, giving me enough time to feel everything out and anticipate everything.”

It was hard to read Ra’s al Ghul’s body language. He was standing perfectly still, and held an utmost refusal to blink at present.

“The important part,” Cassandra said, “was that I did what I did under anonymity. She couldn’t know who the mole was, let alone that it was me. I didn’t care if it kept _me _safe. Turns out I wouldn’t have had to worry about that anyway, because you needed me alive. But my anonymity kept _everyone else _safe. She walked into Wayne Manor with the instructions and codes I gave her, but she couldn’t kill anyone for fear of killing her only source of inside information.”

She couldn’t keep the smile off her face.

“Hell of a thing,” she said. “With the exception of Astrid’s unscripted attack on my dad and Selina yesterday morning, and what you did to Babs last night, none of us have been in any real danger at any point.”

Now Ra’s al Ghul elected to blink.

“None of you except Dick Grayson,” he said. “None of you except Conner Kent.”

He rolled his eyes, and then rubbed his face.

“This is pathetic,” he said. “What did you hope to accomplish with these foolish lies?”

He took a step toward the plexiglass, fixing her with an angry glare. “Do you _seriously _expect me to believe that you sacrificed Conner Kent--that you sacrificed _the only man you’ve ever loved _\--in a silly attempt to appear smarter than you _actually are?”_

Cassandra’s smile warped into a sneer.

_I’ve been waiting for this part…_

She folded her arms.

“No,” Cassandra said. “No, I don’t.”

The next second passed in silence, save for a rumble outside that, from this distance, was indistinguishable from thunder.

But Cassandra Wayne knew better.

She knew that rumble was the sound barrier being broken.

And that someone just heard their cue.

The eyes of the Assassin flanking Ra’s on the right became alert in panic. He went pale and said _“What?”_

Ra’s turned to him. The Assassin put his finger to his ear, listening to his ear piece, before turning to his leader.

“My lord,” the Assassin said. “We have incoming.”

Ra’s al Ghul lifted his chin in incredulity. “What do you mean we have in--”

**BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!**

Cassandra felt the impact in her feet. Dust fell from the ceiling. Something…

...or _someone…_

...just made impact with one of the buildings that constituted Arkham Asylum.

Cassandra said “You only saw what I let you see, Ra’s. So did Astrid, so did Bruce, so did Tim… So did _everyone.”_

Ra’s looked at her with the kind of fury that Cassandra would have bet he thought he’d outgrown by now.

“Smart people are the easiest people in the world to fool,” Cassandra said. “Wanna know why?”

**BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!**

Another impact. Closer this time. Pebbles of ceiling fell on Ra’s al Ghul’s green cloak. He looked at the dust it left before turning his green eyes back to Cassandra.

And Cassandra had to fight off the urge to laugh.

Beaming, she spread her arms wide and cried out:

“BECAUSE THEY THINK THEY KNOW EVERYTHING!”

* * *

**THE BLEAKE ISLAND BASE - FOUR HOURS AGO**

There were ten people in the secret underground base beneath Bleake Island.

None of their mouths were shut.

Because, via holographic message, Cassandra Wayne had spent the last few minutes telling them all about the master plan she had hatched to stop Ra’s al Ghul and the Arkham Knight.

The plan no one in this room had known about until just now.

The plan no one thought Cassandra had been capable of because… well…

She was, at this moment, getting to the part that revolved around Conner Kent.

_“The morning after Dick’s wake,” _Cassandra said in the message, _“that day we all bunkered up at Wayne Manor, I arrived in the Batmobile through the entrance to Batcave South. Which means I was alone down there long enough to go into evidence, get the Kryptonite gas, and replace it with perfectly harmless green-tinted chlorine gas that I had Luke Fox over at WayneTech whip up for me… Okay, when I _say _chlorine gas is harmless, I mean it’s harmless to Conner. It’s pretty bad for everyone else. Anyway, the Arkham Knight’s toys came from somewhere. I did some research on weapons and R&D labs that got hit in the past five years, and saw that there was a concentration matrix that had been stolen from a LexCorp lab in Central City. She used that to shoot Conner with the chlorine laser beam. He fell into the ocean and swam underwater until he got to a part of the shore where he’d placed a duffel bag full of clothes the night before. By the time he’d checked into a cheap motel under a fake name, the footage of Superman’s apparent death had already hit the internet.”_

In the holographic image, Cassandra scratched behind her ear.

_“And before you ask,” _Cassandra said, _“yes, dad, I did destroy the Kryptonite gas after I stole it. We have magic users in the Justice League who can take down an army of mind-controlled Kryptonians. We didn’t need the gas, and keeping it seemed kind of hate-crimey to me.”_

Bruce heard someone snorting behind him. He turned to see that it was Tim Drake.

Violet Paige, who was standing next to Tim, looked at him as though he had just decided to relieve himself in the Holy Grail.

“What?” Tim asked Violet. “I _told _you something about Conner’s death stank.”

* * *

**WAYNE MANOR - TWO DAYS AGO**

Clark Kent looked down at the grass.

“So… Conner’s _not _dead?”

Cassandra had gone to Bruce to say that she should be the one to break the news about Conner’s apparent death to Clark. She had banked on her adoptive father’s aversion to both emotion and social contact, and she had been right to do so.

It had fallen to her not to tell Clark Kent that Conner died, but to tell him that he was still alive.

But she knew that Stephanie, Carrie, Aaliyah, and Harper were watching from the windows in the foyer, so she needed Clark’s help on this one.

She had asked Clark to just look down at the grass. From this distance, it would look as though he was sad.

“No,” Cassandra said. “He’s not. But everyone in there thinks he is. I know Tim has already called everyone in Young Justice. In an hour or two, Conner will also call them to set their minds at ease and to keep them away from here. And I need you to tell your wife, and your kids, and your cousin, and your _Earth Two _cousin that there’s nothing to worry about, and they don’t need to come down here either. Everything is under control.”

Clark smiled as he kept looking down. Uncomplicated and childlike.

“This is one of those super secret _Bat _plans, isn’t it?” Clark asked.

Cassandra struggled to keep the smile off of her face. “Yes, it is.”

“After being on the receiving end of this kind of plan multiple times over the years, I approve,” Clark said. “Wholeheartedly.”

“I didn’t think you’d approve of lying.”

“I’m not lying,” Clark said. “I’m _acting. _ Just like you.”

Cassandra’s struggle to keep from smiling ended in savage defeat.

“Knowing how Bruce is for three decades now, I have to say it serves him right,” Clark said.

“It wasn’t _that _bad, was it?”

“Oh, it _was,” _said Clark. “In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever been on the inside of one of these plans before.”

“Really?”

“Yep,” Clark said. “I guess your dad never trusted me enough.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Cassandra said. “You’re the nicest, most trustworthy person I know.”

“I think that might be the problem,” Clark said. “That… and Dick was a bigger fan of me than he was of Bruce. Neither of them knew that I know… but I know.”

The smile slowly slid off of Cassandra’s face, and she tried to look anywhere that wasn’t Clark Kent’s face.

“Of course,” Clark said, “now that I’m on the inside of a Bat plan, I think it might give me a little bit more perspective. I might have looked on your pop with a little more charity if I knew then what I found out just now.”

Cassandra looked back at Clark. “What did you find out?”

Clark’s face was still cast down, but his blue eyes looked up over his glasses, locked on Cassandra’s face.

“You love everyone in that house,” Clark said. “With everything you have. So much that you’ll torch their image of you right in front of them just to keep them safe.”

When Cassandra had been eighteen, the Christmas night that she stopped being Orphan and started being Batgirl, Clark Kent had given her a pep talk so colossal in its warmth, so naked in its sincerity, that it had driven her to tears.

And she felt the same thing coming on now. Her breath caught and her eyes started burning.

“I know your dad’s limitations,” Clark said. “I know there are things he can’t bring himself to say no matter how hard he tries. So if he can’t say it, then I’m going to have to, and it wouldn’t be the first time.”

Cassandra refused to blink, for fear that a tear would fall.

“I… am _so _proud of you,” Clark said.

Cassandra blinked. Tears fell. Her face broke. She sniffled and let out a breath that shuddered.

“Oh, dear,” Clark said. “People always cry when I say nice things about them. Is it… is it the _way _I say them?”

“No,” Cassandra said, garnishing her crying fit with a warm smile. “No, there’s… You’re doing just fine.”

“Okay,” Clark said. “If you don’t mind my asking, how much longer do you need me for?”

“You can go now, if you want,” Cassandra said, wiping her eyes.

“Alright,” Clark said. “I can’t imagine everyone in that house is going to be happy with you by the time this is all done, so if you need someone to talk to, then you know where to find me.”

“Thank you,” Cassandra said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I’ll see you later,” Clark said, before he turned… and stopped.

“Wait,” Clark said. “Tell me how I’m doing.”

Clark put his hand to his face and bent over, putting his other hand to his knee.

“How good is my acting job?” Clark asked. “Do I look like I’m in grief?”

She didn’t know how well it played to the folks watching from the window, but from this distance, Cassandra thought it looked like he was fighting off a spell of gas.

Cassandra was unable to refrain from chuckling, but she kept it as quiet as possible.

“Dear _Lord, _Clark, you’re overselling it…”

* * *

**GOTHAM CENTRAL LOCK-UP - NOW**

_“Miss Brown,” _the Alfred VI said, _“the application is complete.”_

Stephanie opened her eyes.

What she saw when she did so was a heads-up display with power levels and vital sign readings over in the corners of her vision. But what caught her eye, what stopped her heart, was a line of green text right there in the middle of her vision.

**CATWOMAN PROTOCOLS ONLINE**

She swiftly turned to the mirror above the sink in the cell.

The suit was as black as the hide of a truly unnerving deep-sea fish. It was clingy, without being X-Rated. Stephanie particularly appreciated that the suit covered the space between her breasts, avoiding the kind of unsightly and impractical boob-socking common among the skankier third-tier female supervillains.

It left both the area around her mouth and the areas around her eye sockets open and bare, and culminated atop her head with a pair of decidedly feline ears that would be familiar to those among the super set in Gotham fourteen years ago.

_“Oh,” _the Alfred VI said. _“And one final touch.”_

In the blink of an eye, the color of the suit changed from black to purple.

_No…_

_Not purple…_

_Eggplant._

_“I trust the suit is to your satisfaction,” _the Alfred VI said.

And Stephanie couldn’t say anything.

She had spent her years as Spoiler in a state of frustration that those with seniority kept her out of the fray. Be it out of fear _for _her safety, or fear _of _her assumed incompetence, it was hard to say, and both were indistinguishable from one another anyhow. She took fourteen years off, came back, and felt that very same yoke of frustration yet again, with Cassandra, with Black Bat shelving her in an attempt to keep her safe.

Except… it wasn’t like that at all, was it?”

This was part of a plan. Something that Cass had poured her heart and soul into. Telling Stephanie to bunker up after she saved Cass from the Arkham Knight? Telling her not to leave her hotel room last night? She wasn’t trying to take Stephanie _off _the board. She was trying to keep Stephanie _on _it.

She was part of the plan, now. And not in a support role either. Cassandra had given her a piece of bleeding-edge equipment that was _begging _to be used in a frontline skirmish. 

And that… well… that was all Stephanie Brown had ever wanted.

Sure, Cass could have told Stephanie what was up the night before. In fact, looking back on it, there was a part after the kiss they shared last night that she was pretty sure Cass wanted to say something.

But words can be taken back. Stephanie needed to be _shown._

A smile spread across Stephanie’s face. Her head seemed to lose most of its mass, making her feel so giddily woozy in the process, as two realizations came to her.

Cassandra Wayne knew Stephanie Brown _that _well…

...and Cassandra Wayne loved Stephanie Brown _that _much.

This was respect.

This was _faith._

She’d wondered what it would take to get her back in the costume game.

And this was it.

Given a billion dollar piece of equipment by the person she loved and respected the most in this life, with the tacit agreement that she would use it to unleash Hell amongst goons and minions. And in a stolen superhero identity, to boot.

Then again, given who Selina Wayne was, maybe that identity’s theft was the only way the torch could be passed.

_“Miss Brown?” _the Alfred VI asked.

“It’s… It’s boss, Alfred. Thank you.”

_“You are most welcome, Miss Brown.”_

“Now,” Stephanie said. “How do I get out of here?”

_“This suit,” _the Alfred VI said, _“is equipped with adhesive capabilities, cat-claw capabilities, bullwhip capabilities, _electro- _bullwhip capabilities, as well as augmentations that will bring your strength and speed well above that of even the most impressive human beings… and there is a brick wall to your right.”_

“Gotcha,” Stephanie said. “How do you activate the claws on this thing?”

_“The suit is designed to read both vital signs and body language to anticipate your every need. In short, you just need to _think _it.”_

Stephanie looked down at her hands, and was surprised to see two-inch claws extend from the tips of all five fingers.

And they looked sharp.

She ran her index finger across the brick of the wall, and the concrete material fell to the floor as though it were butter that had been sitting in a hot kitchen for an hour.

_“Time is of the essence, Miss Brown.”_

“Right,” Stephanie said. She reared back her right fist, feeling a fearsome power well up in her arm… and she let fly.

The bricks crumbled into dust, revealing the damp pavement of the alley outside. And Stephanie barely felt the impact on her hand.

It also set off the alarms at Gotham Central, but Stephanie pitied the poor po-po that tried to stop her now.

She moved to wipe some of the dust from the bricks off of her shoulder, only to find the shoulder of her suit vibrating, removing the dust for her.

_My God, those WayneTech kids really do think of everything…_

Stephanie stepped out of the demolished jail cell and into the alley. She noticed that the suit had coalesced _around _her toes instead of _between _them, making her look like she was wearing shoes. Which was a good thing, too. If the suit manifested itself in such a way that it looked like she was wearing those Christ-awful toe shoes, she’d have to tie an anvil around her neck and throw herself into the ocean, having violated every law of decency humankind had ever crafted.

She remembered Cassandra saying that the suit compressed the clothes she’d been wearing down to a molecular level or whatever, so she was still technically wearing them. But _still. _Good on the WayneTech guys for being fashion-forward.

“Where do I go now?” Stephanie asked.

_“Miss Wayne has taken the liberty of providing you with transportation,” _the Alfred VI said.

**BOOM!**

Stephanie jumped as, a few feet away, the black metal monstrosity of the Batmobile decloaked.

_“The automatic drive program will take you to where you are needed,” _the Alfred VI said.

And Stephanie Brown succumbed to a fit of the giggles.

_A supersuit and a ride in the Batmobile on our _second date? _ Cass, you don’t fuck around._

The giggles continued as Stephanie Brown…

...as _Catwoman…_

...climbed into the Batmobile.

* * *

**ARKHAM ASYLUM - NOW**

**BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!**

“You have company, Ra’s.”

**BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!**

“He sounds angry.”

**BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!**

_“And _Kryptonian.”

Superman’s full body-assault on Arkham Asylum had entered its forty-fifth second. And Ra’s rounded on Cassandra with a fury in his eyes. He stepped to the plexiglass, and Cassandra could see little flecks of spittle collect on the transparent surface between them as he took gasping, angry breaths.

“You think this changes anything, Cain?” Ra’s asked. “I have the Venom compound. I have Poison Ivy. In a matter of seconds, the compound will be dispersed, and Gotham City will tear itself apart. Let your Kryptonian tear these walls down! YOU’VE LOST!”

Cassandra put her hands on her hips, looked down her nose at Ra’s al Ghul, and just _waited _for him to get it.

He got it. His shoulders slumped. He seemed to shrink.

“It makes sense that you didn’t test the Venom once you got your hands on it,” Cassandra said. “It’s barrels full of something in the Gotham City sewers, waiting in a truck with a plate number that matches the one on the truck Selina stole twenty-one years ago. What else could it possibly be?”

Ra’s folded his hands in front of him. His body language screamed. He didn’t want to know what was coming next… but he still _needed _to know.

“I have a couple of charities that I run,” Cassandra said. “The one that gets all the play is The Pennyworth Fund, providing arts educations to disadvantaged Gotham City kids. But the other one is The Effort to Map Gotham’s Underground. I run it with Professor Mizoguchi over at Gotham U. We pay urban explorers with cameras to go underground and see what’s down there, which is a charity in and of itself. It keeps them from ripping off old animatronics from Orlando theme parks for Youtube clicks.”

Cassandra scratched her nose, relishing the slow-rolling horror spreading across the face of Ra’s al Ghul.

“Ra’s, one of my EMGU teams found that Venom eight months ago, completely by accident,” Cassandra said. “I had to pay them more to keep them quiet. But we found it. I _took _that Venom... I _destroyed _that Venom… and with the help of Luke Fox over at WayneTech, I _replaced _that Venom. And I gotta say, it was hard to find a liquid that matched the consistency and color, but we managed.”

A smile started wafting across Cassandra’s face. “I had no idea it was gonna be you who found it, but imagine my surprise when I found out you’d been looking for it. I’m just glad I got to see the look on the face of whoever found it. Once they realized they didn’t get what they _thought _they got.” 

**BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!**

Ra’s al Ghul straightened his posture and sucked in his stomach to make himself look taller. To sweep up the few motes of dignity left to him.

“What am I injecting into Poison Ivy?” he asked.

Cassandra tried to keep the unbridled glee from entering her voice.

She failed.

_“Lemon-Lime Kool-Aid!”_

The look of abject humiliation upon the face of The Demon brought to Cassandra a fit of deep laughter, not dissimilar to the braying of a donkey.

“I… I thought it’d be _funny!” _she said.

* * *

**FOUNDERS ISLAND - NOW**

Robert Dries hit the switch on the mechanism that injected the Venom compound into Poison Ivy once the monorail locomotive made it to Founders Island.

The compound made the unconscious Poison Ivy jolt, as a thick green fog emanated from her pores and started streaming out of the locomotive’s shattered windows.

It should be noted that Robert Dries had no idea anything was wrong. He was wearing a gas mask. He could not tell a volatile experimental steroid from a flavored drink mix usually served to children.

The only sign he had that anything was out of the ordinary was that Poison Ivy _said _something. She hadn’t regained consciousness, no, but she was apparently a person who talked in her sleep.

_“Wowwwwwww,” _Poison Ivy said, her eyes still closed. “I haven’t had _this _since I was _eight…”_

* * *

**THE BLEAKE ISLAND BASE - FOUR HOURS AGO**

_“I will not pretend that my relationship with any of you will be the same after this,” _Cassandra said in her holographic message. “ _I will not pretend that all of you will look at me the same way. But this needed to be done. To protect you. To protect _the city. _And know that while you probably won’t behave the same way around me, nothing about how I look at any of you has changed a single bit. You go out there with my hope. My faith… And my love. As simple and as broad as it’s ever been.”_

Cassandra put her hands in her pockets.

_“Except for you, Huntress. You’re an asshole. Stop calling me _‘Stinky-Tits.’”

With that, the message blinked out. The auxiliary lights and the computers in the base came online with quiet whirs now that there was nothing blocking them.

All ten people in the base held their silence for a few moments. And this silence was broken by, of all people, Jason.

And Jason was laughing.

“She-- _She really is your daughter, Bruce!”_

A few feet away, Violet Paige, whose shoulders had been heaving up and down in the silence she held during the message, finally opted to vent her frustration. She walked over to the wall, picked up the green broom next to which Cassandra had been standing during the recording of her message, and broke it over her knee. She flung the pieces over at an empty corner.

This just made Jason laugh harder.

“THIS IS BULLSHIT!” Violet yelled, which quieted Jason down. Finally.

“She put us through all this stupid… pointless… fucking… _God, _what’s the word?”

Tim, seemingly permanently caught in school forever, raised his hand in an attempt to be helpful. “Angst?”

_“Thank _you,” Violet said. _“Angst! _ We’ve been shitting ourselves blind in fear and pain for almost a fucking week, and for what? The _job? _ I thought we mattered more to her more than that!” 

It was evident to everyone that the agony and anger in Violet’s voice was genuine.

But everyone looked at her as though she’d spontaneously started speaking French anyway.

Black Canary put a hand on Violet’s shoulder.

“Oh, honey,” Black Canary said. “You’re… You’re new here, aren’t you?”

“I’ve heard about this,” Tim said. “Bruce making secret plans that save the city, but almost always managing to piss everyone around him off. By the time I got here, Bruce, you were pretty much therapied out. But Dick and Babs told me stories.”

Bruce nodded gravely to himself. In the bad old days, when he could leave nothing to chance, he had contingencies on top of contingencies in place with which he could trust no one. Not Alfred, not Dick, not Barbara, not Jason, no one. It was a part of his life for which he was not proud, and he had hoped, when Cassandra took over operations after his retirement, that she would not make the same mistakes that he had.

But at the very least, Cassandra apologized for her actions. At the very least, she told them all how much she loved them.

So maybe she learned something after all.

“Oh, this is _vintage _Bruce,” Jason said. “Remember when you used me as bait to catch Mister Freeze? I didn’t talk to you for, like, four days. Alfred had to pass notes between us.”

Tim’s quizzical expression caught Jason’s eye.

“What?” Jason asked.

“I’m not gonna lie,” Tim said. “I, uh… I kinda… thought you were the mole.”

“Why would I be the mole?”

“Because when the Arkham Knight hit the manor, you were out of the house. You took Carrie and Aaliyah to the movies. Just, um… Just seemed awfully convenient.”

“I took them to the movies because… Cass… asked me to.”

Jason’s prior gloating demeanor had vanished. His eyes had gone wide. His mouth had gone listless.

“She got me out of the house,” Jason said. “She knew if I was there, I would either catch a beating, or be forced to throw hands, and she made sure I did neither.”

He looked at all of them. His eyes had gone glassy.

He scratched the back of his head, averting his glance from everyone else. “It was, uh… It was nice of her… is what I’m saying.”

Cullen put his hand on Jason’s shoulder.

“This takes me back,” Huntress said. “Good for her.”

Black Canary looked at Huntress with shock. “You sanction this buffoonery?”

“Dinah,” Huntress said, “Babs got herself hurt going cowboy on someone else’s secret plan. _That’s my job. _ I will lord this over Babs for the rest of her life. I am _Team _Stinky-Tits. I will buy the Stinky-Tits _lunchbox.”_

“Jesus,” Bluebird said. “If Babs were just a little more patient. If she just had a little more faith in Cass… then she wouldn’t be in the hospital right now.”

A brief silence fell, that Huntress broke.

“What you’re describing,” Huntress said, “is an extremely awkward conversation that no one in this room is going to have.”

“I’m just saying,” Violet said, “that if she let us in on what she was doing, we’d have been a hell of a lot more effective.”

“Let me ask you something,” Selina said. “You ever been tortured for information?”

Violet glared at her. “If you play the pain game with me, you’ll lose.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not,” Selina said after she rolled her eyes. “Have you ever been tortured for _information?”_

“No.”

“Well, I have,” Selina said. “Twice. Once when I knew something, and once when I didn’t. And let me tell you, I got off a hell of a lot lighter when I _didn’t _know something than when I _did. _ If any of us got captured, then we’d have been safer if we didn’t know anything.”

“I’m just saying we should have made that decision for ourselves,” Violet said. “Are we that fucking untrustworthy?”

A lone voice who’d been relatively quiet finally decided to speak up.

It was Carrie.

“Yes,” she said. “You are.”

They all turned to her.

And Carrie Kelley, for her part, was not shy about holding a room.

“You all have a certain way of looking at Cass,” she said. “See… the first time I met her, she was an unstoppable badass. She was a person who suffered from dyslexia that decided to become an actor and memorize all of Shakespeare anyway because _fuck everyone and everything. _ The Cass I met was someone who was extremely intelligent and incredibly dangerous.”

Carrie surveyed the room before she continued.

“But that Cass wasn’t the Cass you all met,” she said. “The Cass you met was a mute ninja who couldn’t read… that or you’d been trying to get into her pants.”

Violet visibly bristled at this.

“So everything she’s done since then had just been fucking _adorable_ to you hasn’t it?” Carrie asked all of them. “Like she’s a pomeranian walking on her hind legs, and not a _person _with thoughts and emotions who’s had to fight and claw and suffer for all the steps she’s taken. You stand there, all smug and superior because you see how hard she struggled and not how far she came. And you don’t_ fear _her like you should.”

“That’s enough,” Violet said.

_“No, it fucking isn’t!” _Carrie bellowed. “You think this is something she came up with on the fly? Something on this level, she’s had to have had in her back pocket for _years! _ You think this is just for the bad guys? This is for _you! _ Because the thing _I _know, and the thing _she _knows, you all need an _active fucking demonstration _to get through your heads. And this is _it!”_

“And what’s the thing you know?” Cullen asked.

Carrie spread her arms wide.

“This is _her _town,” she said. “She took it while you weren’t looking. Us? We just _live _here.”

The room fell into silence once again as Carrie wrapped up her speech. Bruce knew she was right, and she had the feeling everyone else knew it as well. And there they stood, trying to reckon with Cassandra Wayne’s claim on Gotham City, staked by subterfuge, intelligence, and force of will.

“In any case,” Black Canary said, “not everything she planned came to pass. Babs isn’t here. Not like it’s Cass’ fault, but still, we’re short a body.”

“Did any of your plans come into any hitches like this?” Tim asked Bruce.

“Yes,” Bruce said. 

Jason perked up, seemingly taken off-guard. _“Really?”_

“All the time,” Bruce said. “People are unpredictable. The only reason you didn’t know anything went wrong was because I didn’t tell you. From someone who knows, Cassandra’s done a great job for her first time out.”

“Can we focus, please?” Black Canary asked. “We don’t have a lot of time left. Do we go in with what we have, or do we call an audible and get someone else?”

Selina rubbed her face, sighed, and said “I can find someone.”

They all looked at her.

“Who?” Cullen asked.

She looked at all of them as though she had just been handed a death sentence, before she turned her green eyes toward her husband.

“Just so you know,” Selina said, “I really… _really… _don’t want to do this.”

* * *

**THE DEKKER BUILDING - TWO HOURS AGO**

The elevator opened on the forty-fifth floor of the Dekker Building on the mainland. Selina dragged her husband out by the hand.

The lobby of the forty-fifth floor was near-palatial, done in red carpet with walls that were a comforting hue of beige. The lobby was lorded over by a girthy woman with red hair sitting at a polished oak desk.

Selina did not know this woman. But of course Bruce did.

“Hello, Denise,” Bruce said.

“Mister Wayne,” Denise said, smiling. “This doesn’t seem…”

Selina held out a hand to silence her, before she pointed to the door next to the desk.

“Anyone in there?” Selina asked.

“There aren’t any appointments sch--”

“Thank you,” Selina said, cutting her off and opening the door.

The office into which the Waynes stepped bore the same burgundy carpeting and the same beige paint job. The walls were bedecked with thick, leather-bound volumes, as well as photos of the rich and famous and various certificates of achievement.

Sitting at a similar oak desk as the one outside was a blonde woman, her station in life at the mid-forties doing nothing to dispel Selina’s estimation of her attractiveness. Her blonde hair was pulled into a tight bun. Glasses with circular frames were the only buffer-zone that the world at large had from her rich blue eyes. She had on a pink blouse beneath a gray jacket.

She arose, revealing a gray skirt. And when she spoke, her pitch and intonation were perfect.

“Bruce,” the blonde woman said. “Selina. I’m afraid I--”

Selina held up the same silencing hand that had been used on Denise the receptionist outside.

The woman standing before Selina had come far since the last time she’d seen her. She regretted having to do this, but times were tight.

“Ra’s al Ghul has Pammy,” Selina said.

The jaw of the blonde woman hung open, her eyes going wide. She slowly took off her glasses and set them on the desk next to her, before bringing her hand to her mouth.

She turned, and stared at the closet next to her desk. A shudder came over her, before she yanked out the bobby pins that held her bun in place, sending rapids of blonde hair haphazardly down her shoulders.

The blonde woman opened the closet.

Inside was a baseball bat, painted red and white like a candy cane. Like its owner kept it in there just in case, for reasons that only made sense to her.

She took it out of the closet, and turned to Bruce and Selina.

Her collected blue eyes from a moment before now held the telltale glimmer of barely restrained pants-shitting mania. When she had spoken mere moments prior, her voice was calm, professional, bereft of accent. What came out of her mouth _now _was a screechy sonic woodpile with a Bensonhurst, New York mailing address.

“Awright,” Harley Quinn said as she hefted her bat over her shoulder. “Whose ass I gotta beat to get Red back?”

* * *

**ARKHAM ASYLUM - NOW**

“Look at you,” Cassandra said. “There hasn’t been a point in the past few days that you haven’t been completely fucked into the ground without knowing it. I _thought _the look on your face was gonna be priceless, but _my God…”_

**BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!**

More dust and plaster fell from the ceiling of Inter-Patient Therapy. It lent The Demon a snowy look as it descended to his hair and clothes. The two members of the League of Assassins flanking him were fidgeting, wanting to panic, but not daring to.

And all the while, Ra’s looked at Cassandra, fury flirting with fright.

Cassandra, for her part, just folded her arms and took his measure beyond the plexiglass.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Cassandra said. “You’re gonna bet everything on Astrid. But I have to tell you, Ra’s, it’s not gonna work.”

She took a step forward.

“You know what the most important question anyone can ever ask is?” Cassandra asked.

Ra’s didn’t seem to have an answer.

_“‘Says Who?”’ _Cassandra said. “Astrid Arkham is destined for failure if she tries to tangle with me. Because she doesn’t have the depth or imagination to ask _‘Says Who?’ _ She didn’t know that _no _option was better than the options _you _gave her. Or she just didn’t care, which makes it worse. She’s going to lose, Ra’s. And if, after all this is over, she dusts herself off and tries to contend with me again, then she will _lose _again. And again. And _again. _ Forever. Until we both return to the dirt.”

She took another step forward.

“My victory over Astrid Arkham is eternal,” Cassandra said. “Because unlike her, I _chose _what I am.”

Another step forward. Her breath was now fogging the plexiglass between them.

She looked at Ra’s beneath hooded brows.

“Do you _know… _what I _am?”_

Ra’s didn’t say anything. His face twitched in his anger and his uncertainty.

“I am the _one _monster beneath the bed of _every _monster,” Cassandra said. “I shine my brightest when all the lights go out. And whenever something dark and scary hides in the shadows, aiming to prey on the innocent, the defenseless, the weak, then I am the _darker _and _scarier _thing that stops them.”

She held his gaze.

And Ra’s al Ghul blinked.

It was all the time she needed.

In the brief instant it took for Ra’s al Ghul to open and close his eyes, Cassandra slammed both of her hands on the plexiglass between them…

**WHAM!**

...causing all three men on the other side to start, and step back.

There was no more anger in the eyes of Ra’s al Ghul.

All that was left… was _fear._

And Cassandra Wayne smiled.

She turned thirty-four years old this coming January, and she knew that every breath she’d taken, every punch she’d thrown, every time she put one foot in front of another had led, inexorably to this point.

This was the meaning of her life.

She beheld the quivering, terrified Demon on the other side of the plexiglass, and said:

“I…

_“...am…_

**“...Batman!”**


	32. Batman Eternal

**Chapter 32: Batman Eternal**

**ARKHAM ASYLUM**

Aaliyah Ramsay hid beneath a desk in an old office in one of the asylum's cell blocks.

Why?

**BOOOOOMMMMMM!**

That’s why.

Once the helicopter in which they arrived had made landfall on Arkham Island, she and Cassandra Wayne, the evil bitch that sold her out, had been separated. Cassandra had been taken elsewhere while Aaliyah had been taken to this office. And there she’d been for hours.

At least this office had a bathroom.

**BOOOOOMMMMMM!**

Dust and plaster fell. Aaliyah’s heart didn’t feel like beating for a second, there.

This had been going on for a few minutes, and it had only gotten scarier and scarier.

This most recent one was near. _Too _near. She heard muffled screaming from the other side of the door. Automatic gunfire. Clanging metal. And then…

Nothing.

The door to the office opened. The sound of the turning knob held some chunks, as Ra’s al Ghul’s goons had locked it.

Not that it mattered to the person who had just arrived.

She heard footsteps, heavy and methodical, on the carpet.

Finally, a voice:

“I know you’re behind the desk, Aaliyah. Please come out and talk.”

It was a man’s voice, and kind. Maybe that last part was what got her to her feet.

And what she saw as she rose, was:

“Holy shit, you’re _Superman.”_

Holy shit, it _was _Superman. Cape, tights and big red S, embodying Truth, Justice, and the unshitty parts of The American Way. He was holding a large green duffel bag so packed with _something _that she didn’t think she could lift it. And the man himself didn’t look much older than she did, the last time she checked a mirror.

Aaliyah had to remind herself that Conner Kent, according to everyone at Dick Grayson’s wake, had a holographic thingy on the back of his head that made him look like he was in his thirties. Turned off, he would forever look like he was eighteen.

There was something else memorable about Conner Kent that Aaliyah felt compelled to bring up.

“Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

Superman smiled. “Yeah, everyone out there thought so, too.”

He conjured a smile from the ether, making him look more boyish than he already did. He looked like Jon Lane-Kent, only with a few-- **DEAR GOD, AALIYAH, WHY ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT BOYS RIGHT NOW?**

“Think about how hard my job can be,” Superman said. “Bullets bounce right off me, yet people feel compelled to try and pump me full of lead anyhow. Usually in groups, usually with automatic weapons. So when they empty clips into me, I have to use my Super Speed to grab each individual bullet so they don’t wind up accidentally shooting _themselves.”_

He shrugged, as though to ask _“Whaddya gonna do?”_

Aaliyah shrugged back, because she didn’t want to be rude. There had to be an _extra-roasty _Hell for people who were rude to Superman.

“Anyway,” Superman said as he held up the duffel bag, “I have a stop to make along the way, but I understand you might need someone to walk you out of here.”

She just stared at him.

“But… But Cass…”

“Let’s just say Cass is a lot smarter than anyone gives her credit for,” Superman said. “And they’d have known that quite a bit earlier if they listened to all the nice things I said about her over the years. I know she has a lot to explain to you. And I know you don’t trust her a whole lot right now. All I’m asking is that you trust me, and know that I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

Her eyes fell to the big red S on his chest. That was all the convincing she needed.

“Okay,” she said.

“Alright, then,” said Superman before extending his hand toward the mangled door through which he had just entered. “Ladies first.”

She left the office with Superman close behind her…

...and entered a completely packed cell block.

Scores of men in black, men who had been holding her prisoner until just a minute ago, were now in the cells, screaming, sticking their arms out from between the bars. The floor was littered with the shattered remains of assault weapons, as well as dust and pulverized masonry. The ceiling wasn’t there anymore. And the locks to all the cells were glowing a bright orange.

Aaliyah did the math.

Superman had come in through the ceiling, took all their guns away, shoved them into the cells, and used his Heat Vision to melt the locks on those cells. It would take a lot of time and specialized equipment to get them out again.

And Aaliyah had to take some time from fearing for her own life to bask in how _fucking awesome _that was.

* * *

**SORCIER DRIVE (THE MAINLAND)**

The news broke while Mayor Alysia Yeoh was in the limo on the way to City Hall.

The news choppers circling the monorail making its unmanned test around the city spotted actual _men _in the unmanned monorail, and decided to drive the city nuts with unsubstantiated speculation.

In addition, citizens had been hearing booms so loud that they were audible across Gotham Bay at Arkham Island. Substandard video revealed the culprit behind the explosions to be…

_...Superman._

_Well, _Alysia thought, _at least he isn’t dead like the internet said he was._

On this seemingly endless limousine ride from Schlesinger Station to City Hall, Alysia was accompanied by Police Commissioner Renee Montoya (who was on the phone) and her assistant Jennifer (who was watching the muted news footage on her own phone with great interest).

“What?” Renee asked the person with whom she was on the phone. “I mean… I mean I’ll _tell _her, but… Are you _sure..? _ Okay… Okay, thank you.”

Renee hung up her phone, and looked at Alysia.

“Well?” Alysia asked.

“We got lab analysis back on the green mist that’s coming out of the locomotive,” Renee said, after which she fell uncharicteristically silent.

“Well?” Alysia asked a second time. “What is it?”

If Alysia didn’t know any better, she would have sworn Police Commissioner Montoya was embarrassed.

“Madame Mayor… It’s Kool-Aid,” Renee said.

Alysia could feel the distaste and shock form on her own face.

_“Kool-Aid?”_

Renee nodded.

“The bad guys… stole the city’s monorail… to dose the people… with _Kool-Aid?”_

Renee shrugged. “That’s what they tell me.”

As Alysia grappled internally with just what the hell she was going to say to that, Jennifer spoke up.

“Madame Mayor,” she said, “you need to look at this.”

Alysia looked at the television.

The news choppers following the monorail had picked up yet another vehicle flying behind the monorail and gaining ground.

It was small, about the size of a motorcycle. There were two people riding this vehicle, the one at the rear notable for her all white attire, her large and stylized helmet, and for the cape flowing behind her.

Even if Alysia didn’t know who it was, the chyron at the bottom of the screen was nice enough to tell her.

**MOTHER PANIC ARRIVES ON SCENE**

_“Ugh,” _Alysia said. “Cape Shit.”

“Who’s that she’s riding with?” Renee asked.

* * *

**MIAGANI ISLAND**

“Why am I riding in front?” Tim asked.

“So I don’t get my cape in your face,” Mother Panic said in reply.

It was windy as hell on this glider above the monorail. The sunglasses he wore was the only way he could see, and his earpiece was the only way he could understand what Mother Panic was saying.

The glider was on autopilot, and Mother Panic had her oversized, hockey glove-style white gauntlets around his waist.

Hell of a thing, though. Her gauntlets moved up and down his front every now and again. If Tim didn’t know any better, he would have sworn that Violet Paige was getting handsy.

But that couldn’t be it.

“What’s your superhero name?” Mother Panic asked.

“Don’t have one,” said Tim. “I’m not a superhero anymore.”

“You are tonight,” Mother Panic said. “You need a name.”

“I dunno… _‘Savior?’”_

_“Laaaaaaaame.”_

“You have any ideas?”

“How ‘bout… _‘Drake?’”_

“Like the _rapper?”_

“Like the _bird,” _Mother Panic said. “It fits with the bird theme. Drakes are birds. Drakes are also dragons, so, y’know, _double _cool.”

“If I went out there with a superhero name that was the same as my last name,” Tim said, “that would make me a fucking moron.”

“Fine,” Mother Panic said. “Savior it is. And this is our stop.”

The glider was a few feet above the middle car of the monorail, and keeping pace.

“How do we get in?” Tim asked.

A moment of silence, before Mother Panic said “Fuck it, the city can send a bill to The Pike.”

Mother Panic stood up from the glider, and jumped off.

She brought her huge gauntlets down on the gleaming white metal of the top of the monorail. The impact was so savage that she went through the roof, and landed on the floor inside. Even from this distance, Tim could see one of the Squires run toward her, only for Mother Panic to swat him away as though he were a cat toy.

Tim sighed, and followed suit, unleashing his collapsible metal bo staff in mid-air.

* * *

**ARKHAM ASYLUM**

There were two gargoyles in the long hallway leading to the administrative parking garage.

Bruce Wayne was perched on one of them.

He heard a series of footsteps coming from the entry. He squinted down, and saw that Ra’s al Ghul was heading for his ride out, flanked on either side by two of his goons walking a step behind.

Bruce waited for them to pass beneath.

He descended on the goon on the right, planting a boot in his neck so hard that he was sent into unconsciousness instantly.

Bruce brought his elbow into the bridge of the nose of the goon on the left. Blood flew up the guy’s mask, and into his eyes. Bruce reared back for another strike, and then stopped when he saw that the Assassin was melting to the floor on his own.

Then Bruce slowly turned his head to Ra’s al Ghul, and they locked eyes.

“Detective,” Ra’s said, keeping all emotion off his face. “I haven’t seen you in… _decades, _now. You look older than I do these days. Are you still The Detective? Or are you just… Dear Old Dad?”

“Yes,” Bruce said. “I am. And you’ll keep your goddamned hands off my daughter.”

“Your daughter,” Ra’s said, “had created too many problems for me to be allowed to live. She’s far too willful for her good or mine. All I have to do is wait to strike. Unlike me, she has to get old someday.”

“I seem to remember you being more than happy to let me live whenever I interfered with your plans years ago.”

“This is different,” Ra’s said.

“Because she’s a woman and I’m not?”

Ra’s rolled his eyes. “I must keep an eye on what is to be passed to my son. Your daughter is talented, but I will not tolerate this level of independence in an heir.”

“Then what’s the point?” Bruce asked. “If you don’t want your child to outgrow you and do better than you did, then you had no business having one in the first place. All you want is an ego stroke, and if that’s the best you think you can do, you were never any earthly good to anyone. You’ve spent hundreds of years in a state of total worthlessness.”

The face of The Demon turned red. “That girl operated without your knowledge for the past week. She made a _fool _of you. A man as controlling as you are is telling me this meets your approval?”

Bruce nodded. “Yes. It does. And I hope it happens again. Tells me I did a good job.”

Ra’s al Ghul glowered. “It only occurs to me now… at this late date… to ask myself…”

His right hand vanished beneath his green cloak.

“...what my daughter ever saw in you.”

His hand re-emerged from his cloak brandishing a scimitar. He brought it high above his head, and--

**CRACK!**

Ra’s al Ghul’s hand jerked. He howled in pain. And the scimitar was sent clattering down the hall.

He looked up…

...and saw Selina Wayne perched on the second gargoyle. Jeans on her legs, leather jacket on her back, and a bullwhip in her right hand.

As she rewound her whip, she nodded at Ra’s.

“‘Sup, fucko?”

Ra’s looked down in a fury…

...right into an elbow from Bruce Wayne.

* * *

Cassandra was still in her cell when Superman and Aaliyah showed up at Inter-Patient Therapy.

Aaliyah, for her part, stayed by the door as Superman walked up to the plexiglass and dropped the duffel bag.

“You know,” Superman said, “one of the first things I ever heard about you was that you could punch through plexiglass.”

“I could,” Cassandra said. “But you know how much I love watching you work.”

Superman smiled. “Stand back, Cass.”

She did so.

He reared back and threw a light punch, rendering the plexiglass into heavy shards.

Cassandra stepped out of the cell, kicking a few shards out of the way and looked down at the duffel bag.

“My work clothes?” she asked.

Superman nodded.

“Okay,” Cassandra said. “First thing’s first… Aaliyah, could you come here for a second?”

Aaliyah sheepishly stepped forward.

“Jesus,” Cassandra said. “There’s, uh… There’s a lot I have to explain to you.”

And Aaliyah seemed to grow two whole feet with a sudden outrage, all the more pure for being earned.

_“‘Explain?’” _Aaliyah asked, her voice growing ragged. “Bitch, _you shot my mom!”_

Cassandra closed her eyes and nodded, before she lifted up the white t-shirt beneath her trench coat.

“Yeah,” Cassandra said as she pointed to an area on her bare abdomen. “Right here. Between the organs and past the veins and arteries. I don’t have the scars to prove it anymore, but I was shot there _repeatedly _during my training. In that exact same spot. And when I flinched, I was shot again. I know that part of the body by heart. In fact, I was shot there the day I met Babs.”

Aaliyah just tilted her head and blinked.

“I called myself _‘Orphan,’” _Cassandra said as she put her shirt back down. “We fought a cannibal named Dollhouse… I had a chocolate milkshake for the first time, it was, uh… It was awesome. The milkshake part, not the cannibal part. _Although...”_

“What if you missed?” Aaliyah asked.

“If I missed, then ninety percent of gunshot wounds are survivable if they make it to the hospital in ten minutes. Talia was already _in _the hospital with a doctor standing five feet away. As long I didn’t hit her in the heart or the face, she was always going to be okay. And I _didn’t _miss.”

Aaliyah shifted on her feet. Like she could see Cassandra’s point, but didn’t quite want to.

“I’m not gonna say it isn’t gonna take some time,” Cassandra said, “but I would like to get us on friendly terms again. Eventually.”

“I don’t like you,” Aaliyah said. “Not even a little bit.”

Cassandra smirked. “Tell you what. When all this cools down, I will give you one shot to hit me in the face with a two-by-four as hard as you can.”

Aaliyah shifted on her feet yet again, only this time her expression softened ever-so-slightly.

“Well,” Aaliyah said, “maybe I like you a _little.”_

Cassandra’s smirk turned into a smile. “Good girl. You mind giving me and Conner a minute?”

Aaliyah nodded and went back to the door.

“What is it?” Superman asked.

Cassandra put her hands in her trench coat, and looked down, waiting for the blush to recede from her cheeks.

“Steph and me might be a thing now,” Cassandra said. “I mean, a _real _thing.”

She finally looked up at him.

Superman looked confused for a second… but a smile finally broke out on his face. He wrapped her in a tight hug and kissed her on the forehead.

“Good,” he said softly into her ear. “You’re a heck of a girl, Cass. Someone should treat you that way.”

She pulled away slightly to look at him. “Not many guys would react this well to their ex-girlfriends walking off with another woman.”

“Have you _seen _Stephanie Brown?” Superman asked. “I’d pick her over me too.”

Cassandra felt good enough to laugh at this.

“Are you sure you don’t need me after I see the young lady outside?” Superman asked.

“We’ll be fine,” said Cassandra. “Gotham looks after itself. But thanks for the help so far. Go back to Washington. Be Superman.”

She looked down at the duffel bag at her feet.

“I have to get dressed,” Cassandra said. “So many appointments to keep.”

* * *

The Birds of Prey walked right in through the front door.

Superman had pacified the lion’s share of the League and Squire forces, but there was still a large contingent situated at the front of the main building of the asylum.

Bluebird was behind Huntress and Black Canary when they barged in as though they had a patient to drop off and precious damned little time in which to do it.

Black Canary took a deep breath…

_“SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”_

...and the resulting Canary Cry knocked all twenty or so henchmen off their feet, flinging their weapons from their hands.

One of them tried to get up, but Huntress fired one of her crossbow bolts into his left kneecap.

And while she saw this, Bluebird had to chide herself for thinking _I used to be an adventurer like you._

One of them jumped up from behind the reception desk, pistol in hand. Bluebird took it upon herself to bring a taser pistol up from beneath her leather jacket. One round was all it took before he was wrapped in blue tendrils of electricity, and he was sent to the ground with drool-bubbles coming out of the corner of his mouth.

She heard heavy, rapid boot-falls on the tile to her right.

Bluebird looked to see a Squire running at her, fury in his eyes, brandishing a shattered wooden chair leg.

Before she could aim her pistol, however, she heard a sound from behind her that was almost mythical in its ungodliness.

**“NYAAAAAAAAAAAAH!**

Harley Quinn, clad in a red and black tracksuit, her blond hair fashioned into unruly pigtails, flew _over _Bluebird, her baseball bat held high.

And Bluebird had no idea where she got the room for the running jump.

Harley brought the bat down on the stampeding Squire where neck ended and collarbone began. He fell to the floor of the admissions lobby as though his strings had been cut.

She brought her bat up again.

“HARLEY!” Bluebird yelled.

The ex-clown stopped, and looked at her.

“No bodies,” Bluebird said.

“Oh,” Harley said. “Gotcha.”

After which she stopped and idly looked at the three Birds dispatching their foes.

“So,” Harley said. “Birds-a Prey, huh?”

“I just started,” Bluebird said as she fired a couple of more shots, “but yeah.”

“Whaddya guys do?” Harley asked. “Go to places around the world and beat the snot out of people?”

Black Canary was elegantly peppering a Squire with kicks to the abdomen. “It’s a little more complicated than that. But pretty much.”

“I see,” Harley said. “And you guys get paid?”

Huntress made sure that the Squire she had by the neck was thoroughly watering the floor with the blood streaming from his nose. “Again; complicated, but yes. It’s a whole thing.”

“Uh-huh,” Harley said. “So, uh…. Can I join?”

Bluebird saw Black Canary and Huntress sport identical expressions of bottomless terror. The sound that came out of their mouths was one of great and mortal offense as they simultaneously yelled:

** _“NO!”_ **

* * *

Aaliyah followed Superman out of the Inter-Patient Therapy wing, through the depths of the building, and toward a rear exit. All the while, she was careful not to step on his cape.

Once they got to the admissions lobby of this small side building, they happened to fall upon two Squires that had not, up to this point, been dispatched by any of the superheroes swarming the island.

And they both had assault rifles.

They only had time to to level their weapons, before two quick beams of Heat Vision came out of Superman’s eyes. They hit each Squire on the hand, forcing them to drop their guns.

Superman turned to her.

“Selina told me at Dick’s wake that your parents must have taught you how to take care of yourself. And I understand that, after today, you might have some frustrations you may want to let out.”

He looked at the two Squires holding their scalded hands, before he turned back to her.

“So what I’m asking is… You want to take care of them, or should I?”

Aaliyah looked at the Squires, and her vision turned red.

A scream which Aaliyah, a few moments prior, would not have thought herself capable, emerged from her mouth. Her legs carried her quickly toward the two Squires before prudence could dictate further terms.

Her feet came up in a missile dropkick, almost imprinting the Squire to the left into the wall behind him.

As she kipped up, the Squire on the right tried to fling a punch, but Aaliyah ducked it. She kicked him in the shin, bringing him to one knee, before she grabbed his left arm and yanked hard. She could feel the vibration of his shoulder dislocating in her hands as he screamed.

One knee to the face later, and it was all over.

The Squire to the left got back to his feet, only for a rapid sweep by Aaliyah’s right leg to drop him again. She brought her leg up, and then back down again, her foot turning his nose to powder within the flesh of his face. He turned over and curled up, unable to continue.

Aaliyah looked back at Superman, who was regarding her with open-mouthed shock.

_“Tight,” _he said.

“Thank you.”

_“TIIIIIIIGHT!”_

“Thank you again.”

He had closed the gap, put his hand on her shoulder, and held the front door open for her.

She hadn’t had time to register the number of vehicles in the lot, or the sheer amount of destruction that Superman had wrought upon the multiple edifices that comprised Arkham Asylum, before he clapped her on the shoulder yet again.

“Well, Aaliyah, it’s been real,” Superman said. “But I have to head out. And before you ask, I’ll put in a good word for you with Jon. Have a good one.”

And he was off. Up, up, and away, before Aaliyah could ask “Say _what _there now?”

From the lot, someone called to her.

“Hey, kid!”

Aaliyah looked down.

Amidst the recently arrived vehicles in the Arkham Asylum parking lot, there was a blue Bentley. And there stood Jason Todd in a gray suit with no tie, leaning against the passenger door, smile firmly etched on his face.

“Need a ride?” he asked.

* * *

**THE MONORAIL**

Tim and Mother Panic had breached the gleaming white monorail at its midpoint, which meant that they had trouble on both sides, coming from the front and rear.

At first, Tim thought that this was an error in the planning skills of Violet Paige… until he heard the snaps.

They came as Tim was fending off two Squires with his bo staff. Across a small mountain of unconscious Squires they came. Tim jabbed the one on the right directly in the nose with his staff, before pelting the one on the left was a swipe so vicious that his face pinged off the metal of the staff, only to ping yet again off the metal of one of the poles in the middle of the car for the use of standing passengers.

**SNAP!**

They were both thunderously loud on their own, but they came together with the sound of a bomb going off.

Tim turned toward the noise.

He knew that Mother Panic had had a wrestling background from the time she had spent at Gather House. So it wasn’t entirely alien to his ken that he would see her with a Squire in the grip of a full nelson.

But the Squire’s arms were bent back unnaturally. He seemed to be in such pain that he could only barely vocalize it. And at once. Tim knew what happened.

In putting her arms beneath his armpits and pressing forward on his neck, Mother Panic had totally shattered this poor asshole’s shoulder blades.

She freed him from her grip, grabbed one of his useless arms, and swung him overhead, like a cudgel, upon the two Squires at her rear, trying to advance. The three men collapsed in a laundry pile of broken, useless humanity.

Whereupon Mother Panic threw her head back and _roared._

Tim knew that she hadn’t made an error in her planning. He just knew that she just really wanted to _hit _something. Preferably _lots _of somethings over as long a frame of time as she could possibly manage.

Seeing Mother Panic standing there, letting out a warrior spirit that civilization was supposed to have bred out of her with such a full-throated abandon, Tim felt…

_...something._

He didn’t know.

Everyone in this car was out.

Onto the next.

* * *

**ARKHAM ASYLUM**

During their fight in the hall, Bruce and Selina had managed to maneuver Ra’s away from the scimitar he had dropped.

That was where most of the good news ended.

Ra’s al Ghul had kept himself in peak physical condition.

So had Bruce and Selina Wayne, but they were swimming against the tide of one indisputable fact:

Ra’s al Ghul had not gotten any older in the past thirty years. And the Waynes, despite how strong, how fast, and how relatively fresh they’d kept themselves, very much had.

They had press-ganged Ra’s into the Therapy Block mess hall where, even after all this time, there were still tables and chairs set up.

Ra’s brought a fist across the top of Selina’s head. It was a glancing blow, to be sure, but it hit where it was aimed: the stitches at her hairline from their run-in with the Arkham Knight the day before. Her head rocked, and when it came back, blood had started to flow.

A savage kick to the midsection sent Selina into one of the metal folding chairs. Her ass hit the seat and she teetered back to the floor, her face hitting the tile with a wet splat, the blood on her face Jackson Pollocking the ground.

Bruce came in, sending one… two… _three _punches into the face of Ra’s al Ghul.

Ra’s leered back at him, blood flowing from a busted nose and a split lip, staining the collar of his freshly-starched white shirt.

He smiled.

Ra’s drove a knee deep into Bruce’s leather jacket-clad stomach, robbing him of his air. He unloaded a left hook into Bruce’s face with such a power that he momentarily went blind. He didn’t see the kick that Ra’s al Ghul sent into his sternum, sending him to the floor with blood in his mouth.

As his vision cleared, Bruce saw Selina come up behind Ra’s with her bullwhip uncoiled, and wrap it around his throat.

Insanity was upon Selina, if the fire in her green eyes were any indication. With her teeth bared, she reared back on the whip with such force that the parts of her face that weren’t caked in blood turned red anyway.

The eyes of Ra’s al Ghul bulged in his skull as he reached back with both his hands, and found the back of Selina’s neck.

He flung her over his head, and through the table at his right. The cheap wood exploded into shards and dust, after which Selina lay momentarily motionless.

Ra’s plucked the bullwhip from his throat and flung it to the side, before removing his jacket and rolling up the sleeves of his dress shirt.

He walked toward Bruce.

And Bruce rose to meet him.

* * *

A lone Squire broke away from his squad and tried to get the hell out of this literal and figurative madhouse.

The place was crawling with superheroes from Gotham City and far, far beyond, and in the estimation of this lone Squire, the fight was doomed.

He made his way through the wing that led to Inter-Patient Therapy.

A door to the eastern part of the building opened.

And he stopped and gaped at what he saw.

For he stood in the presence of _Batman._

Cassandra Wayne’s new suit was high-tech and analogue at the same time. It’s simple dark gray kevlar plating. Molded to her upper and lower torso, was lightweight over an identically colored spandex bodysuit. There were enough gaps in the suit that would, to an informed observer, let all manner of bullets in.

However, the black Bat symbol across her chest let off an Active Friction Field at all times. If someone shot at Batman, the Active Friction Field would slow the velocity of the bullet down to that of, say, a spit-wad fired from the back of a classroom.

Batman’s suit was old school. Gray armor, black boots, black trunks, black cowl, black cape, black symbol, yellow utility belt.

Her cowl showed the bottom half of Batman’s face, which was something she’d have to get used to. Across her full lips was a swipe of black lipstick… This had no psychological or combat practicality, she just thought it looked cool.

Black Bat had spent six years in the shadows, desperately avoiding any kind of attention.

But today? Batman would be _seen _today.

With one brutal strike, she sent the lone Squire into unconsciousness, before she opted to walk out of the building.

She entered an anterior hallway to find ten more Squires, no doubt, looking for their missing compatriot.

Thirty seconds later, when they were all unconscious, Batman continued her walk.

She entered the main lobby, where the Birds of Prey (and their tag-along Harley Quinn) were at violent and bloody war with twenty or so Squires.

Batman opted not to help.

They looked like they had it under control.

She felt the eyes of the heroes in the room scrape across her.

Black Canary was in shock.

Huntress had the gall to smile.

Bluebird seemed to be doing math in her head. For it occurred to Cassandra that Harper Row was the only person on Earth who could ever say that they slept with a Robin, a Batgirl, _and _a Batman… so yeah, that was something she could tell her kid one day.

Harley looked at Batman with sheer terror. A terror that was only amplified when Batman shot her a withering glare in return. For Cassandra Wayne did not care for Harleen Quinzel as a person in the slightest. A few weeks playing her on stage could do that to a person.

She walked out the door and into the open air.

Superman had pelted the place to near oblivion. It looked like it had been bombed by the Allies in 1943. All four main buildings were barely standing.

Batman’s eyes fell to the parking lot. There was one car, a trio of motorcycles, and…

**BOOM!**

...a freshly decloaked Batmobile.

The roof of the vehicle slid back to reveal Catwoman lazily draped across both front seats with her hands behind her head, as though she were lazing about in a hammock.

The eggplant-colored nanosuit hugged every curve of Stephanie Brown’s body, while maintaining a baseline level of modesty. As Batman’s eyes slalomed down Catwoman’s inviting form, she remembered not too long ago that she had had her fists and her feet… and her hands and her lips and her tongue all over her.

As far as memories went, it was one of the happier ones. One that she’d like to revisit one day. Or one night. Or _this _night, when this was all over.

It was only when the two made eye-contact that Batman realized that Catwoman was eyeing her just as greedily.

_“Bat…” _Catwoman said.

Batman folded her arms. _ “Cat…”_

They both held that eye-contact for a moment… before they both involuntarily shuddered.

_“Jesus, _that was awkward,” Catwoman said.

“Yeah,” said Batman. “Let’s, uh… Let’s never do that again.”


	33. Citizen Cain

**Chapter 33: Citizen Cain**

**GOTHAM CITY HALL**

Gotham City’s mayor’s office was a whirlwind of bureaucrats coming in and out needing things signed.

The fact was that someone had stolen the city’s monorail system. To what end, Mayor Alysia Yeoh did not know. All they had done, according to the GCPD crime lab, was start spritzing Kool-Aid out of the locomotive windows for some reason that she herself could not possibly fathom. But that couldn’t have been _all _they were doing. Mother Panic and some asshole in a leather jacket and sunglasses were conducting some thorough martial arts shit against the thirty or so dudes in black who stole the damn thing, so there was something else afoot.

Not only that, but word had come in from GCPD that there was a police standoff going down on Burgess Avenue on the mainland against a contingent of heavily armed men in similar black garb to the guys on the monorail. There were even rumors of someone down in the old Burgess Avenue office building in head-to-toe in blue light up armor. 

So yeah, that must have been the leader.

Police Commissioner Renee Montoya had already taken her leave to head down to Burgess Avenue and head up police operations. The only constants in this office were her assistant Jennifer fielding phone calls, and herself, glaring at the television off in the corner, playing footage of the thing that was supposed to breathe new life into the city being commandeered by assholes in masks. One year on the job, and already re-election was an uphill battle. They had been going through lock-down and evacuation protocols only to find that they had stopped updating them fifteen years ago, before Game Seven. Before supervillainy took a decade-and-a-half long holiday, only to come back on _her fucking watch!_

Jennifer nodded, and handed Alysia the phone.

“Who is it?” Alysia asked.

“It’s the governor,” said Jennifer. “We may need to coordinate so the army can come in.”

* * *

**FOUNDERS ISLAND**

The monorail had begun its second circuit of the city. And Tim Drake and Mother Panic were eight cars away from the locomotive.

Both of them were covered in blood, but most of it wasn’t theirs. They had been dispatching a small army of Squires in this journey. For Tim’s part he didn’t feel tired at all. His staff rang true across the faces and bodies of the goon horde.

And Mother Panic did not look fatigued in the slightest. If anything she was speeding up. She was going through Squires like a hot knife through room-temperature brie. And above the sound of cracking bones and screaming thugs, Tim could almost… _almost… _hear Violet Paige beneath that white helmet, giggling to herself.

Tim found this… _endearing? _ Was _that _the word?

From the seventh car came a Squire.

And he was armed.

Mother Panic’s posture told Tim that she was unafraid. She turned to this interloper, seeming to grow beyond the extra six inches that her helmet already gave her six foot body. She raised her fist and--

**BWOM-M-M-M-M-M!**

The blast from the experimental sonic weapon that the Squire wielded rocketed Mother Panic into the ceiling, denting it. She hit the floor of the car with a powerful thud, and that she moved and groaned was Tim’s only evidence that she was still alive.

Tim fished three explosive Batarangs that he’d gotten from the Bleake Island base from beneath his leather jacket. He took half a breath, and let fly.

He’d still had his spread perfected from his Robin days, with two embedding themselves on either wall, and one in the ceiling.

**TH-TH-THOOM!**

They all detonated almost simultaneously, causing the Squire to drop his weapon. It fired on impact with the floor…

**BWOM-M-M-M-M-M!**

...venting into the side of the car.

Tim saw no need to be fancy. He ran toward the Squire, choking up on the end of his staff, and hit a line drive off the side of the Squire’s head. The poor bastard collapsed to the floor like an overtaxed Jenga tower.

With that done, he knelt down to check on Mother Panic.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

Mother Panic sat up, and shook her head. “That son of a bitch. You get him?”

“Yeah,” Tim said. “Yeah, I g--”

**REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!**

The air in the car came alive with the ear-splitting sound of monstrous creaking. It took a second, but Tim finally figured it out.

It came from the car’s outer plating. It was sleek, shiny and painted a futuristic white, but it was still just simple steel. Simple steel that had just endured two sonic blasts and three Batarang explosions. Those impacts had apparently warped it beyond any conceivable use.

Tim felt the tremor of the car beneath his feet as the plating flapped in the wind of the monorail’s speed.

He looked out the window to his left and saw a few hundred pounds of white steel plating fly off of the car, and hurtle toward the densely populated Founders Island below.

Tim was a smart man, but given time and thought, he couldn’t have expressed the situation any better than Mother Panic did herself in that very instant.

“Oh, shit…”

* * *

**BATBURGER**

This was beneath Roberta Lee. So _very _beneath her.

As a reporter for the _Daily Planet, _she was one step closer to her dream of winning a Pulitzer. But she was young, still only in her twenties, the ink on her journalism degree from Columbia University still wet, and she had to make her bones, so to speak.

Editor-in-Chief Jimmy Olsen had her on the human interest beat. So here she stood on a packed and foggy Gotham City street on Founders Island, talking to the woman who owned the Batburger.

Her name was Ariana Dzerchenko. She was in her early thirties, short, and almost lethally pretty with a black bob and brown eyes. She wasn’t dressed like someone who owned her own business, standing there in a pair of jeans and a vintage Gotham City Knights jersey. Roberta had to guess that she wanted to put out a Woman-of-the-People vibe.

_Good for her, _Roberta thought.

“So,” Roberta said. “Care to give our readers some background on this establishment?”

“Certainly,” said Ariana as she pointed to the small, squat building that contained the Batburger, outside of which a line of people extended around the block.

“My Uncle Vari owned the original Batburger on Founders Island,” Ariana said. “It fed citizens and tourists alike… until the Founders Island Riot when The Undying took over. But Uncle Vari rebuilt and relocated, making this dining establishment bigger and better than ever… until the Battle of Founders Island when all those superheroes fought those rock monsters. Now, the insurance payout was so big that Uncle Vari was able to retire. But me? I was a teenager at the time, but I never wanted to give up. I always felt that something was missing from Gotham City without a Batburger. And now here we are, on the night of--”

**REEEEEEEEEEEEE!**

_“LOOK OUT!”_

Roberta looked up.

The monorail had just gone past, and she could see that the white steel plating had come off of one of the cars… and was heading down, past the fog line, and toward them.

As soon as she could look back down, Roberta could see the muscle memory of the average Gotham City citizen, after lying dormant for the past fourteen years, had kicked back in. They scattered, trying to get away from the huge metal object coming toward them.

Ariana Dzerchenko herself had leapt forward and tackled Roberta to the ground and covered her head with her own body. Roberta heard the plating make landfall, tearing up concrete, and sending outdoor dining furniture into the sky. Shattering glass and crumbling architecture followed.

Once the sound had abated, Roberta and Ariana got to their feet, and beheld the carnage.

The restaurant had been empty, save for the staff. Everyone on the street, waiting to get inside, had gotten out of the way of the falling sheet of metal. From what Roberta could see, the plating had stopped just short of the counter inside, sparing the lives of the employees.

But the Batburger had been destroyed nonetheless.

Ariana turned to Roberta, and said:

“This was a stupid fucking idea anyway.”

* * *

**ARKHAM ASYLUM**

The Birds of Prey (with backup by Harley Quinn) had successfully pacified the remainder of Ra’s al Ghul and the Arkham Knight’s forces that hadn’t themselves been pacified by Superman.

Now, it was a matter of a clean-up sweep.

Black Canary and Huntress were at the front of the search party in cell block F. Bluebird and Harley were taking up the rear.

“So who’s the chick in the Batsuit?” Harley asked. Bluebird could see Harley suppress an involuntary shudder.

“That’s Batman,” Bluebird said, still keeping her eyes down sight of her taser pistol.

“She’s a chick, though.”

“Doesn’t make her any less Batman.”

“Naw,” Harley said. “I mean who is she under the mask? Have I met her?”

“You have,” Huntress said up in front. “It’s okay, Bluebird, they met at Bruce and Selina’s wedding.”

“We did?” Harley asked, her eerie blue eyes going wide.

Bluebird sighed. _ Oh, well._

“It’s Cass,” she said.

Harley gasped, her creepy eyes getting even wider. “That’s _Bruce’s kid?”_

Bluebird nodded.

“She played me in a play one time,” Harley said. 

“I know,” said Bluebird, unable to keep the disdain out of her voice.

“Heckuva thing, though,” Harley said. “She played me like I was some kinda unhinged _Looney Tune._ She didn’t get the subtle nu--OOH! I FOUND ONE!”

The cell into which Harley had been looking held a Squire who was hiding under the cot sticking out of the wall. Once he had found out, he stood up and raised his hands.

“Please,” the Squire said as Harley advanced upon him with a raised baseball bat and a broad, hungry smile. “PLEASE D--”

**THWACK!**

Annnnnnnd down he went.

Harley turned to Bluebird, beaming, before she looked around the cell in which she stood.

“I think this is Lock-Up’s old cell,” Harley said before she started giggling. “Lock-Up was locked up. Lock-Up- _ception!”_

Huntress rolled her eyes. “That has to be the last one. Stick a fork in it. We’re done here.”

“Right,” Black Canary said. “We’re needed in the city. Robin will give us a signal if things get out of hand. Come on, let’s head out.”

Bluebird sighed.

She sighed because Harley had ridden here on the back of Bluebird’s motorcycle.

And _good Lord _was Harley gropey…

* * *

**BURGESS AVENUE**

From the time Batman had gotten into the Batmobile with Catwoman in the passenger’s seat, they hadn’t said a word to each other.

Batman had taken out little compartments from her utility belt to see if they were all in working order while the Batmobile drove itself. Every once in a while she averted her gaze to the holographic dashboard. That set of numbers must have meant something to her, because she had the lenses in her cowl down. Those lenses must have been like the ones in those glasses of hers that compensated for her dyslexia when she tried to read something.

Catwoman, over in the passenger seat, kept trying to spy glances of herself in one of the many shiny surfaces in the Batmobile’s interior.

Because Stephanie Brown was Catwoman now.

And that was awesome.

“Was I part of your plan from the beginning?” Catwoman asked.

“Not from the beginning,” Batman said.

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t know Ra’s brought you in at the beginning,” Batman said. “Once I found out you were back in Gotham the night Dick got shot, you were on the board, and I tried my damnedest to keep you that way.”

“What if I didn’t _want _to be on the board?” Catwoman asked.

“You did.”

“But what if I _didn’t?”_

“And what if the sky was neon green?” Batman asked. “Both things are equally impossible.”

“Says you.”

“No, says _you,” _Batman said. “Know why you were Spoiler so damned long? Because you loved it. And don’t say you didn’t, I can tell when you lie. Yeah, you can tell me you moved on with your life, that you put your skills to use to make a lot of money, and that’s great. But that’s the thing about doing what you love for a simple paycheck that no one talks about. The person _giving you _the money is always an asshole who has more of it than you do.”

“I loved it,” Catwoman said, “because I was next to you.”

Batman looked at her as she popped the last compartment back on her utility belt.

“Steph… where are you _now?”_

Catwoman blinked.

Then she blinked again.

And once Catwoman was satisfied that she was done, she brought her body over the division between the seats, straddled Batman, and kissed her, palcing her hands on either side of the cowl as she did so.

It was a slow, thorough thing. And when it was done, Catwoman pulled away from Batman and let her breath out slowly so she didn’t blast Batman in the face with a gust of it. And when she was done, she realized Batman must have gone for the _good _black lipstick, because there were no smears around her lips.

“I love you too,” Catwoman said.

They stared at each other.

“So where are we eating after this?” Catwoman asked.

“Steph,” Batman said, “in about forty-five seconds, I’m going to be launched from this vehicle. You are not sitting in the best place.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Catwoman said. “We’re gonna beat the Arkham Knight, and when we do, it isn’t gonna change the fact that I spent most of the day in a jail cell behind your Big Brain Eighth Dimensional Chess horseshit. I’m hungry and you’re a billionaire’s daughter, so you’re paying.”

Batman sighed. “Remember that Big Belly Burger on Aparo Street? The one that was next to your high school back in the day? I’d meet you there after class and you always bought me fries? It’s still there.”

Catwoman smiled, and got off of Batman, seating herself back on the passenger side.

“All this, and you’re _romantic, _too.”

“There’s a police standoff a couple of blocks down,” Batman said. “That’s where the Arkham Knight is. You mind dropping in and saying Hi? There’s something I have to do first.”

Catwoman looked down at her hands. The suit she was wearing grew those claws again.

“If I’m gonna test out my new toy,” Catwoman said, “it’s gonna be on someone who deserves it. And that evil piece of shit is getting some claw marks.”

The roof of the Batmobile retracted.

“Have fun!” Batman called out.

And with that, the Caped Crusader was ejected into the night sky.

* * *

**ARKHAM ASYLUM**

The white tile floor of the mess hall was slick with the blood of the three people who fought therein.

Everything on Bruce Wayne hurt. His job right now was getting between Ra’s and Selina, soaking up punishment meant for his wife. Because between the blood she’d lost yesterday during the Arkham Knight’s attack, and the opening of the stitches on that very same wound this evening, Selina had lost an _astonishing _amount of blood in the span of thirty-six hours. She was still effective now, but she was slowing down, and whatever little skin on her face that wasn’t covered in blood was turning white.

Selina bounded off the wall and brought a knee into the side of Ra’s face. Bruce could see The Demon’s flesh ripple, blood and slobber flying out of his mouth in seeming slow motion, further dousing his shirt similar to other previous blows. Ra’s al Ghul’s shirt was red from the collar on down to the third button, and his face was a bloody mess.

Ra’s made to go after her, and Bruce--with knees that felt a hell of a lot more creaky than they did minutes ago--got between them.

He brought an elbow across the right side of Ras al Ghul’s face, and tried to bring a knee into his gut.

Ra’s brought both hands down to block it, and then brought those hands up, into Bruce’s chest. Less to hurt him, and more to create space.

He brought one of those expensive leather shoes right into Bruce’s chin with a roundhouse kick, and through the pain, he could feel the grit of slightly pulverized teeth in his mouth to go with all the blood. His head hadn’t even come all the way down yet before Ra’s peppered Bruce’s abdomen with swift strikes so powerful that he not only _felt, _but _heard _cracking ribs. From there it was a spinning backfist that knocked Bruce on his ass.

In his cocoon of pain, he saw Selina take another run with her knee up.

Ra’s dodged it, placing a hand on her back and slamming her into the wall, leaving a blood print. 

As she staggered back, Ra’s grabbed a handful of her black pixie cut and brought one… two… _three _powerful knees into the small of her back.

Selina dropped to her knees and groaned pitifully. Ra’s kicked her in the head, bringing up a mist of blood and sweat, and sending her into one of the metal folding chairs.

* * *

**THE VANCE BUILDING**

Catwoman was unaware of precisely how the stand-off at the front of the Vance Building (which had been abandoned for eight years now) had started. Squires on one side, GCPD on the other, and being that the Squires had loads of expensive and experimental weaponry at their disposal from years of raiding with the Arkham Knight, they were winning.

And while she wished she could help the cops at the front of the building, that would be announcing her presence, giving the Arkham Knight the go-ahead for all manner of unpredictable improvisational fuckery.

Best to be discreet.

The Batmobile dropped her off on the other side of Burgess Avenue on the mainland, and Catwoman used the diversion of the gunfight at the front of the building to sneak around the back.

She found a service entrance. And it was locked.

“This thing have lockpicks on it?” Catwoman asked.

_“Such a function is not needed,” _the Alfred VI said. _ “Not strictly speaking. Simply put your finger to the lock, and the suit will flood the lock’s confines, providing a perfect replication of the key required.”_

“Alright,” Catwoman said. “Fair enough.”

She put her index finger to the lock, and a tendril of eggplant nanites flooded the keyhole. She used her other hand to turn the knob. It slid to the other side effortlessly.

_“Activating Predator protocols,” _the Alfred VI said.

Catwoman was about to ask what those were… but at the same time she had to muffle a scream when the hand holding the door just disappeared.

She still felt it, she held it in front of her face, but she couldn’t see it, save for a light blurring around the edges. In low enough light (which she had) she’d be completely invisible.

_Predator _protocols.

Funny.

_“I should also mention,” _the Alfred VI said, _“that this Catsuit also contains Cone of Silence capabilities. You have three feet of quiet in which to perform your appointed rounds. Discretion is the better part of valor, but speed is the soul of efficiency.”_

“Good to know,” Catwomman said, and she went inside the building, silent and unseen.

She navigated darkened hallways until she found an old office near the front of the building, in which half a dozen Squires moved agitatedly from computer to computer.

And at the front of the room, arms behind her back standing before a bank of holographic televisions, each tuned to a different news feed of the hijacked monorail, was the Arkham Knight.

One of the Squires walked up to her.

“We’ve failed,” he said. “The mission _failed. _ Whatever we’re pumping into the city from that monorail, it isn’t Venom. No one’s going crazy. All the cops in the city that are loaded for bear? _They’re right the fuck outside!”_

“Venom isn’t the only thing we have on that locomotive,” the Arkham Knight said without looking at him. “We’ve been ordered to stay here and oversee. The Demon hasn’t given us any orders otherwise. Back to your station.”

The Squire huffed.

_“Something _hit Arkham,” he said. “I don’t know what. We’re not gonna _get _new orders from Ra’s. Reports say it was Superman. Y’know, the Superman _you _were supposed to have k--”

Only then did the Arkham Knight deign to look at him.

She went for his neck with one hand, lifting him off the ground. With the other, she reared back and punched him in the face so hard that Catwoman could hear the high, crunchy sound of the front of his skull caving in. The man’s blood showered from the remains of his head as the Arkham Knight let him tumble to the floor.

The five other Squires in the room stopped, and turned to look at the Arkham Knight.

“I value the people under my command more than almost anything in the world,” the Arkham Knight said. “But the mission beats them. Every time. Never question the orders. Back. To. Your. Stations.”

Wordlessly, the Squires went back to what they were doing. And the Arkham Knight turned back to the televisions.

Catwoman crouched by the door leading into the darkened office, trying to work out a plan to take them all out. Planning was not one of her strong suits. But she developed about a half of one, and snuck in.

She needn’t have bothered. Catwoman was invisible, and had three feet of artificial silence to play with. Not to mention she packed an experimental bodysuit that made her exponentially faster and stronger. Even if none of the above were true, she still had the darkness of the office, the noise of the televisions, and the gunfight outside to cover for her. She knocked out and choked out all five Squires in under thirty seconds.

Which just left the Arkham Knight.

Catwoman’s feet padded silently on the carpet as she got closer… and closer.

As she advanced, she began to wonder precisely how she’d take the Arkham Knight down. So engrossed was she in theory that she reacted to the Arkham Knight turning around, Glock pointed directly at her, a split-second too late.

The Arkham Knight shot Catwoman in the head.

Yeah, the bullet bounced off the new suit, but still.

Catwoman was rocked back into one of the desks in the middle of the room. She looked down, saw that the Predator protocols had been disabled, before looking back up.

“Nifty toy,” the Arkham Knight said. “But I’ve been trained for war since birth. I could _feel _you in here.”

Catwoman stood up straight as the Arkham Knight re-holstered her Glock.

“Stephanie Brown?” the Arkham Knight asked. “Why are you dressed as Catwoman?”

“Because I _am _Catwoman, you moron.”

The Arkham Knight snickered, the electronic distortion of her voice causing it to come out like a blast of static.

“After a generation, it’s just cosplay,” the Arkham Knight said. “Trying to relive former glories on the eve of a city’s death.”

“You didn’t hear your buddy?” Catwoman asked as she tilted her head to the side. “You lost. That ain’t Venom you’re pumping into the city.”

“I don’t care,” the Arkham Knight said. “It could be Venom. It could be that I walk out of this building and start twisting off the heads of every man, woman, and child in this city. Either way, this place that Bruce Wayne has spent his life trying to protect will fall.”

Catwoman took a step forward.

“Even _you _don’t believe your own bullshit. You’ve failed, Astrid. You didn’t disperse the Venom, and you didn’t kill Superman. And now you started offing your own people that disagree with you like you’re Hitler in the fucking bunker with the Red Army outside. You’ve been trained from birth to do this. You were told you were special all your life, you thought you had this grand destiny in front of you, and you still fucked up. And the only thing ruining this moment for me is that I can’t see your face as you realize it’s true.”

The Arkham Knight’s shoulders were heaving with anger. Catwoman took another step forward.

“You’re no player. You’re just a miniboss. Your only purpose in life is to eat shit and fall down. So here’s what’s going to happen. First, I’m gonna beat the living fuck out of you. Second, Cass is going to show up. Third, _she _is going to beat _even more _of the living fuck out of you. And fourth, you’re going to whatever loony bin has low enough standards to take your sorry ass. I am not talking shit, Astrid. I am telling you the story of your life.”

The Arkham Knight’s shoulders still heaved. “Know that for a fact, do you?”

Catwoman smiled.

“No… But I _hope.”_

* * *

**THE FREEMAN BUILDING (ACROSS THE STREET)**

At the edge of the building, Batman stood.

Below her was a gunfight between the Squires and the GCPD, the muzzle flashes breaking through the blanket of fog.

Above her were the news choppers, trying to cover the fight, their search lights just bouncing fruitlessly off the mist below.

“Come in, Robin.”

Robin’s voice came in through her cowl.

“Robin here.”

“ETA?”

“Just give me a minute.”

“Decloak when you’re directly above me.”

“Roger that.”

Batman waited for a few long moments, surveying the city beneath her, before:

**BOOM!**

The Batwing decloaked above her.

Robin’s voice came in yet again. “I’m here, boss.”

“Searchlight,” Batman said. “Thirty seconds. Then you’re needed elsewhere.”

The searchlight beneath the Batwing shone bright, painting Batman’s silhouette, large as life, upon the blanket of fog below.

Batman spread her cape, using her own body to bathe Gotham City with the symbol of The Bat for the first time in well over a decade.

* * *

And the whole world saw it.

The news choppers picked it up immediately. From there, the image went to Breaking News segments broadcast across America. It was picked up by CNN, which meant it went to countries beyond.

An oddity to unaffected parties, to be sure.

But to the people in Gotham City?

The effect was instantaneous. Wordless. Passed from parent to child, sibling to sibling, lover to lover. In the past fourteen years, since Arthur Brown murdered almost seventy thousand people during Game Seven, there had been a pall over Gotham City. In their efforts to recover, something intangible had been lost. Things moved slower. Color drained. Words were hushed or held back, as though an unseen force might punish them for their merriment.

But upon seeing the Bat Symbol that big for the first time in what felt like an eon, that intangible thing that Gotham City had lost fourteen years prior returned suddenly, violently, in full force.

Electricity.

Life.

_Hope._

And nowhere was this more acutely felt than in the Mayor’s Office at City Hall.

Alysia Yeoh had been on the phone with the governor to help coordinate an army strike team when the first images of the Bat symbol appeared on the TV.

She had developed what she had thought was a hard heart in the years since she started the Founders Island Riot. But upon seeing that symbol, seeing that chyron beneath it…

**BATMAN RETURNS**

...there emerged in her chest something she had thought long lost. A sense of security. A faith that no matter how dark or fucked up things might get in this insane town, a force _even more _dark and fucked up would put the wrong things right. Had she seen Santa Claus, mid-present drop off on Christmas Eve after over thirty years of no longer believing in him, she imagined the effect would roughly be the same.

There are some forces in the universe against which cynicism could not stand.

And Alysia Yeoh imagined that the return of Batman must be one of them.

“All we need now is your sign-off so we can send the army in,” the governor said over the phone.

Alysia didn’t know her jaw was hanging open until she decided to speak.

“No,” she said.

A second of silence that must have been stunned, before the governor asked _“What?”_

“Belay that order,” Alysia said. “We don’t need the army’s help.”

“With all due respect, Mayor Yeoh, are you _out of your fucking mind?”_

“Batman’s back,” Alysia said, the smile slowly spreading across her face. “I think we’re gonna be okay.”

* * *

**THE VANCE BUILDING**

Catwoman started laughing. Her chest seemed to swell. It was almost as though she could feel color coming into her cheeks.

She pointed at the television screens over the Arkham Knight’s shoulder, and the Arkham Knight looked.

Every last one of those TVs bore images of the Bat Symbol, being cast upon the fog line just outside this very building.

Catwoman knew that the Arkham Knight liked to present herself as an unstoppable badass. Which was why she took so much joy at the one word that came out of Astrid Arkham’s mouth beneath that helmet. A word that even the electronic distortion could not rob of its genuine dismay and true horror.

_“No…”_

Catwoman had to force the smile off of her face, but she got there.

“Of course,” Catwoman said, “hope on its own can only do so much. Hope needs a kick in the ass every once in a while. But you know what?”

She took a step forward. Now it was time to test out how strong this Catsuit really was.

_“So do you!”_

The Arkham Knight turned her head just in time to walk into as hard a right cross as Stephanie Brown could manage.

To say that the Arkham Knight hit the wall on the other side of the room would be a trifle misleading.

The Arkham Knight _went through _the wall, falling in a heap upon the pavement of the alley outside in a shower of newly loose bricks.

Catwoman looked down at the hand that had done it with wide blue eyes.

“HOLY SHIT!”

* * *

**THE FREEMAN BUILDING**

Robin’s thirty seconds were up. The Batwing recloaked, and silently flew off.

Beneath her, Batman noticed that the volume of shots from the gunfight in the streets had lessened considerably.

Thermal scans revealed some of the fellows on the Squire side of the conflict had resorted to running away.

She fought the urge to smile, lost, and smiled anyway.

Then she jumped off of the roof.

The Vance building was a four story structure. She spread her cape to glide into a top floor window.

Scans revealed that there were close to forty Squires in the top three floors of the four floor building.

In her estimation, it just didn’t seem fair.

They should have brought more.

The tech in her cowl worked its magic, setting their radio frequency to be fed through every active electronic device in the building that had a speaker. Every television, every PC, every radio, provided they were turned on.

So they would all hear what was about to happen to them.

The feed would also go into the Catsuit. She thought Steph might get a kick out of it.

Batman flew into the top floor of the Vance building in a hail of broken glass. There were about twelve Squires on this open floor, all holding guns, all aiming them at her as though they were crucifixes against a vampire.

She arose from her kneeling position, shards of glass falling from her black cape to the carpet, and smiled at all of them, feeling the fear coming off of them in waves.

Batman gritted her teeth…

...cracked her knuckles…

...and started doing her job.

* * *

**GOTHAM BAY**

Robert Dries knew something was fucky with the whole Venom thing. He should have heard police sirens by now.

_Oh well, _he thought. _Time for Plan B._

He placed three charges on the doorway to the locomotive, and stepped into the middle of the first car.

Robert heard the rumble in the cars beyond. Heard the fighting. He didn’t need the radio for that.

As the rumbling got nearer and nearer over the next few minutes, Robert got the remote switch out of his jacket.

The door on the other side of the first car opened. In stepped Mother Panic, as well as some guy in a leather jacket and sunglasses. At _night. _The prick.

They saw him.

He smiled.

And then he pressed the remote switch.

**BOOOOOM!**

The charges he placed on the doorway to the locomotive went off, demolishing the front third of the car. The explosion sent Robert, Mother Panic, and Big Chief Sunglasses to the floor.

Once he got a chance to look up, Robert saw, through the ragged end of the first car, the locomotive continuing its way down the track above Gotham Bay.

As Robert felt the joy spreading in his heart, Big Chief Sunglasses grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket.

_“What did you do?”_

Robert flashed one of the toothier smiles of his lifetime.

“There’s a bomb in the locomotive,” he said. “Shadow Density. Big yield. Three minute timer. It’s headed for Bleake Island. How many people live there, a million? Well they ain’t gonna be living in three minutes!”

And thus Robert fell to the mammoth force of the laughter bubbling up from a glad soul. He had to ride over it to look Big Chief Sunglasses in his stupid face and yell:

“YOU LOST!”


	34. The Night the Line was Crossed

**Chapter 34: The Night the Line was Crossed**

**GOTHAM BAY**

Tim had the blonde-haired Squire by the lapels of his jacket, the wind from the demolished front of the monorail car whipping both their hair back.

_“What did you do?”_

The Squire smiled at him as though he were advertising Colgate.

“There’s a bomb in the locomotive,” he said. “Shadow Density. Big yield. Three minute timer. It’s headed for Bleake Island. How many people live there, a million? Well they ain’t gonna be living in three minutes!”

As the Squire started cackling like a Bond villain, Tim looked over at Mother Panic. He rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses. He had the funniest of feelings that Violet Paige was doing the same behind her helmet.

Tim looked back at the Squire just in time for him to scream “YOU LOST!” right in Tim’s face.

“Y’know,” Tim said, “we had a feeling you’d pull some shit like this.”

He put his finger up to his ear.

“Robin? _Now!”_  
  
**BOOM!**

The blonde-haired Squire jerked in fright, and looked out of the ragged end of the slowing monorail car. If Tim had to guess, he must have had the scare of a lifetime thinking that that three minute timer he’d set went off three minutes early.

But Tim knew better.

The Batwing had just decloaked over the speeding locomotive.

Metal pincers coming from beneath the plane sank into the open areas where the locomotive’s windows had once been.

With a sharp **CREAK!** the Batwing lifted off, taking the locomotive off of the track.

“You were saying?” Tim asked. 

The Squire looked at him as though he’d just cheated at jacks.

At which point Mother Panic stepped forward and stomped on the guy’s face so hard that his head bounced off the floor.

* * *

Robin set the Batwing’s autopilot for the Abernathy Bridge connecting Bleake Island to the mainland. If there was a bomb on board the locomotive, it would go off with as few civilian casualties as humanly possible.

Tim’s voice came in through her earpiece.

“Your boss was right,” he said. “There is a bomb on the locomotive. Three minute timer. You need to disable it.”

_Oh, shit…_

“You know I have no idea how to disable a bomb, right?” Robin asked.

Tim sighed. “If all else fails, just chuck it into the Gotham Bay.”

“Right,” Robin said, rolling her eyes and signing off.

She secured the hook of her grapnel gun to the side of the cockpit as the plexiglass windshield slid back, exposing her to the open air. From there, she’d be able to rappel down from the Batwing, and into the locomotive.

Robin secured both the grapnel gun and her threaded cane to her utility bet before she climbed out.

The wind whipped her hair about as she exited the plane and clambered down the side. Even if Tim were still talking, she wouldn’t have been able to hear him over the winds and the engines.

She made the mistake of looking down as she rappelled past the wing. The waters of Gotham Bay beneath her tonight seemed as flat as concrete and dark as tar beneath the fog.

Robin used her boots to kick out a little bit more of the glass that the Squire must have shot out before she made her way inside.

Once she was in the relative safety of the locomotive, she saw a woman with green skin on the floor who was only clothed by a bodice made of leaves. Robin surmised that this must be that _“Poison Ivy” _person who was a big deal in the old days.

As Poison Ivy stirred on the floor as though she was emerging from the wooded depths of a hangover, Robin turned her eyes to the control panel at the front of the locomotive.

It wasn’t hard to spot. It was a black metal box the size of a frying pan.

Robin used the handle of her threaded cane as a crowbar to open the front.

Inside was a black… _thing… _about the size and shape of a brick, a couple of green lights, and a forest of blue wires down at the bottom. No visible timer to speak of, but simply putting her hands on the side of the box and feeling the vibrations told her that it was active.

She made to pick the bomb up and throw it out of one of the locomotive’s many open windows and into the waters below… when she stopped.

For some bizarre reason, something stuck out in her head. Something Aaliyah had told her a few days ago, when they both watched Cass pointedly _not _telling Clark Kent that Conner was dead.

_“They’re _veins, _Carrie. They _all _go directly to the heart.”_

With this in mind, with a confidence that even _she _knew she had not earned, Robin reached into the box, wrapped her hand around a healthy share of the blue wires down at the bottom, and yanked them all out.

The lights inside went dark, and the bomb itself stopped vibrating. Robin had just disarmed her first ever explosive device.

_“GAHH!”_

Robin whipped around, her fist still clutching a fistful of severed wires, and saw Poison Ivy with a hand to her face, looking at her with terror.”

“Was that a bomb?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Robin said, smiling dopily. “I showed it who was boss.”

“Aren’t you supposed to carefully select a wire to cut in case it goes off?”

Robin looked at her as though she were insane.

“Who the hell designs a _bomb _like that?”

* * *

**THE VANCE BUILDING**

As she watched the Arkham Knight collect herself in the street, Catwoman heard something.

The feeds from every other Squire on the three floors above her.

_“Contact! CONTACT!”_

_“Fall back to the interior, I repeat, fa--”_

_“Jesus, she just went right _through _him!”_

Catwoman could hear automatic gunfire three floors above her, for all the good it would do the Squires hoping to contend with Cassandra Wayne.

She smiled.

One of the most fun parts of her Spoiler days was watching Orphan (or Batgirl) rip through goons and low-rent supervillains as though they were made of tissue paper. And now here she was, making herself a horror movie villain to the henchmen above.

As well as she was supposed to.

Cass _was _Batman, after all.

And if Catwoman didn’t know any better, she could swear that the Arkham Knight could hear the same feed in her helmet.

Still smiling, Catwoman rampaged through the hole in the wall through which she had kicked the Arkham Knight.

And that’s when the claws came out.

She went airborne, driving her knees into the Arkham Knight’s chest, knocking her back into the wall of the building on the other side of the alley.

Catwoman rapidly and repeatedly scraped her claws against the front of the Arkham Knight’s armor in vicious swipes, sending large chunks of blue metal flying.

The Arkham Knight had the presence of mind to grab both of Catwoman’s wrists, spread her arms wide, and put some oomph into giving her a head butt.

As her head rocked back, Stephanie was stunned by the knowledge that, under any circumstances, that blow would have turned her head into a loose aggregation of red chunks.

But she was Catwoman now. Catwoman had fancy new toys.

And she barely felt it.

She leveled her head at the Arkham Knight…

...winked…

...and returned the head butt with added interest.

Catwoman could hear Astrid Arkham groan within her armor as the Arkham Knight’s helmet cracked right down the middle.

The Arkham Knight let go of Catwoman’s wrists and lunge-kicked her in the midsection so hard that she flew back through the hole in the building she’d made, her back banging against one of the metal desks in the middle of the old office.

She stood up straight as the Arkham Knight stepped back through the hole in the building and into the office, sparks from her newly ruined armor lighting up the middle of her chest.

The gunshots above were getting louder and louder. Batman was making rather decisive and terrifying progress. And the poor suckers over the radio were telling the same tale.

_“Rochester emptied a whole clip into her, and she didn’t slow down! _ Why isn’t she slowing down?”

_“RETREAT! FALL BACK!”_

_“Astrid! Help us! DEAR GOD, SOMEBODY HELP US!”_

Catwoman reached behind her and grabbed the desk she had slammed into. With her newly augmented strength, she brought it over her head lengthwise, destroying six or seven white ceiling tiles as she did so, and slammed the other end over the Arkham Knight’s head.

The Arkham Knight was driven to her knees as the end of the desk wrapped around the upper half of her body with a loud creak.

Catwoman waited until the Arkham Knight threw the desk off of her before she threw out her hands.

The claws on the Catsuit worked when she just thought about them, so maybe the bullwhip protocols worked the same way.

They did.

The eggplant colored nanite tendril that came out of the palm of her right hand wrapped around the Arkham Knight’s left shoulder. But the tendril that came out of her left hand? That one wrapped around the Arkham Knight’s neck.

_“Shall I deploy the electric pacification feature?” _the Alfred VI asked.

Catwoman nodded.

Thick blue veins of electricity extended down the nanite ropes. Astrid Arkham screamed as her armor darkened and sparks flew.

After a minute… or after a year… the electric part of the electro-whip shut off on its own. The Arkham Knight dropped to her knees yet again, her now-black armor rising and falling with each breath she took.

Catwoman took a moment to listen to the radio feed.

It had gone silent.

As the Arkham Knight slowly rose yet again to her feet, the ceiling behind Catwoman exploded.

* * *

Batman’s cape and armor were awash in blood that was not her own.

She had punched and kicked a bloody swath through forty men across three separate floors, feeding on the screams of anguish and terror as their weapons and tactics failed them.

Batman threw an explosive charge at the second story floor and waited until it exploded. She leapt through the smoking hole and landed upon a desk on the ground floor.

The smoke cleared and she saw the Arkham Knight standing on the other side of the room, smoke coming off of her armor. Two ropes of nanites snapped from the Arkham Knight and back into Catwoman’s hands.

Batman fixed the Arkham Knight with a glare.

“Catwoman,” she said, not looking at her. “The police out front are collecting stragglers from the Arkham Knight’s crew. Would you mind helping them out?”

After a pause, Catwoamn said “Have fun, dear,” before she jumped out of a hole in the side of the building.

The Arkham Knight seemed to be in quite a bit of pain. Not only that, but every time her chest rose and fell with breath, Batman could hear the creaking of armor that had taken a pummeling.

“I thoroughly embarrassed the man who raised you from birth to be a killer,” Batman said. “Every attempt you’ve made to hurt my family has not only _failed, _but _backfired. _ And now..? Now I’m going to beat on you until you can’t remember what order the months come in. So I have to ask, Astrid…”

Batman dropped from the desk, and rolled her shoulders.

“Is it personal yet?”

* * *

**ARKHAM ASYLUM**

“You are beaten, Detective.”

**THWACK!**

A right cross from Ra’s al Ghul, and Bruce could feel blood from a newly opened cut seep from his eyebrow, and into his right eye.

“You have been beaten since the day you thought to contend with me.”

**THUMP!**

A shot to those already crumbling ribs of his. He tried to breathe in, and the result was like trying to inflate a balloon inside a rickety matchstick house that was too small for it. 

“Now,” Ra’s al Ghul said, “I shall take your eyes from you. All the better to hear your wife’s screams as you fall into the abyss.”

Bruce watched Ra’s al Ghul’s shoulders. When they moved, he would.

And then they moved.

Bruce put some stank on a fist that rocked the left side of Ra’s al Ghul’s face, bringing up a fine mist of blood. He brought an elbow to the right side that caused Bruce’s arm to go numb from the forearm up.

He brought knees into The Demon’s gut, each one feeling to Bruce as though he was taking the least effective route toward chopping down a redwood tree.

None of it… _None of it… _was doing any good.

With each blow, he could feel his own strength ebbing away. The weakness pervading his being was like being injected with an acrid smoke that made him hurt.

Bruce Wayne discovered, in the worst way possible, that he was too old to do this anymore.

He gasped for breath as Ra’s grabbed the collar of Bruce’s shirt with one hand, and his belt buckle with the other. He heaved Bruce up and sent him to the nearest wooden table in the mess hall.

The table disintegrated into dust and shards beneath him, sending a bolt of agony from the small of his back to the middle of his spine. For a few seconds he couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t inhale as Ra’s al Ghul stood over him, raising his foot above Bruce’s face, looking to stomp the life out of him.

Bruce could only breathe when he heard a loud **CLANG** ! and saw Ra’s rocket toward the tile floor.

A bloodied Selina Wayne just nailed Ra’s al Ghul in the back of the head with a steel folding chair.

* * *

**THE ABERNATHY BRIDGE**

The Birds of Prey expected a signal to come from Robin if something had gone wrong.

The Birds got the signal.

So something had gone wrong.

They’d already been on the mainland when they got the signal. Black Canary and Huntress were taking up the front while Bluebird--with Harley Quinn in tow--took up the rear.

And Harley’s hands, every so often, roamed up the front of Bluebird’s body armor.

“Knock it off, Harley.”

“My hands are slippin’!”

“No they’re not!”

Robin’s signal took them to the Abernathy Bridge, which connected the mainland to Bleake Island. The bridge was abandoned, either because everyone stayed where they were to look at the monorail, or they stayed home because there was visibly broadcast supervillainy afoot. They were beneath the fog line, so to Bluebird, it was as though she left Gotham City for the misty and forbidding confines of Silent Hill.

She heard engines above them.

The Batwing, with the windowless and slightly rumpled white locomotive from the monorail beneath it, softly set down on the bridge. From there, the pincers from beneath the plane retracted back into the vehicle’s fuselage. The Batwing lifted off, and out through the fog, leaving the locomotive behind.

Robin jumped out of one of the locomotive’s shattered windows, and started running toward them.

“RUN!” Robin yelled from thirty feet away.

Harley spoke up right in Bluebird’s ear. _“What?”_

Bluebird could hear Robin more clearly.

“RUN! THIS CHICK IS REALLY PISSED OFF!”

Bluebird’s blood didn’t even have time to turn cold before she felt the concrete of the bridge rumble beneath her. The swirling water of Gotham Bay deafened her. But because they were ensconced in fog, she couldn’t tell precisely what it was. 

Black Canary saw it as soon as she stepped off of her motorcycle.

“LOOK OUT!”

A column of wriggling seaweed the size of a small building, fresh from the floor of Gotham Bay, fell upon the bridge. It destroyed the motorcycle from which Black Canary had just stepped, it knocked Huntress, Bluebird, and Harley off of theirs, it cracked concrete. Bluebird felt the impact tremor in her teeth.

Robin, Bluebird, and Harley were on one side of the seaweed, nearest the locomotive. Huntress and Black Canary were on the other.

Poison Ivy emerged from the locomotive with murder in her eyes.

**“They brought me back to this concrete Hell!” **she bellowed. **“They used my body as a weapon! But now? NOW I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE! The people who used me will choke on their blood next to the people they tried to kill! ****_Everyone_ ****will die! STARTING WITH YOU!”**

Bluebird felt an even deeper rumble. If she had to guess, beyond the fog, even more immense columns of seaweed had emerged from the water, ready to do considerable damage to the city.

She and Robin were inching back, but trying to avoid the length of seaweed that separated them from Huntress and Black Canary.

In fact, the only person on this bridge who didn’t seem to be terrified, apart from Poison Ivy herself… was Harley Quinn.

She stood up, kicked a piece of dislodged concrete away, brushed off the front of her red and black tracksuit, and looked at Ivy with her hands on her hips.

“Red… Whaddya think you’re _doin’?”_

The silence that followed was so all-pervading that Bluebird, for a fraction of a second, was convinced she’d gone deaf.

Then the rumble came again. The churning water of Gotham Bay recommenced. 

But the column of seaweed on the bridge started receding back into the waters from whence it came. 

Bluebird turned her head to look at Poison Ivy.

And Poison Ivy’s face… had turned brown.

Bluebird tried to figure out why this was, until the obvious answer presented itself.

What other color would a green woman’s face turn when she blushed?

The last of the seaweed fell back into Gotham Bay, and Bluebird saw that Ivy had her hands behind her back, trying to look literally anywhere other than in the direction of Harley Quinn.

“So,” Poison Ivy said. “Uhhhhhh… How have _you _been?”

* * *

**THE VANCE BUILDING**

The Arkham Knight unholstered both of her Glocks, and started firing.

The Active Friction Field on Batman’s armor caused the bullets to fall out of the air and onto the carpet like so much loose change.

As she advanced on the firing, disbelieving Arkham Knight, Batman liberated an explosive Batarang from her utility belt.

The Batarang exploded right next to the Arkham Knight’s helmet, darkening it, staggering her, and rendering her unable to answer the missile dropkick that Batman aimed at her ribs.

Batman’s boots did little to actually hurt the Arkham Knight, but they did manage to knock her back out through the hole in the wall, and into the alley.

As the Arkham Knight struggled back to her feet, Batman conjured something else from her utility belt.

A thin charge about as round as a coffee cup.

Yesterday morning, after she had rescued her dad and Selina from the Arkham Knight (and, in turn, after she herself had been rescued from the Arkham Knight by Stephanie Brown), she had glided from Wayne Tower, leaving Stephanie on the eightieth floor balcony.

But what she had done was glide down to the Batmobile, and drive into the secret entrance of Wayne Tower, with the analysis that her cowl had done of the Arkham Knight’s armor during their scuffle. Luke Fox in the WayneTech underground labs made this charge for her using that analysis while Cassandra curled up in a corner and took a much-needed nap after her night of patrolling.

The Arkham Knight tried to use a trash can to help her get back to her feet, but Batman took it away from her at the last possible instant.

Batman plunged the charge deep into the full steel trash can, and brought the mouth of the can down over the head and shoulders of the Arkham Knight.

As newspapers, empty fast food bags, a couple of apple cores (and, as Batman was disturbed to see, a used condom) fell to the street, Batman peeled back a leather portion of her gauntlet to reveal a small button.

The Arkham Knight screamed and spread her arms, the trash can about her upper torso screeching as it sheared apart into steel confetti.

Batman saw the charge clatter off of the Arkham Knight’s knee…

...and then she pressed the button.

From the charge bloomed a translucent blue cloud that dissipated almost as soon as it had appeared.

And Batman watched as the lights on the Arkham Knight’s armor started blinking on and off.

“Wh-What’s going on?” the Arkham Knight asked. _“What did you do to me?”_

The charge had inserted a virus into the OS of the Arkham Knight’s armor. It was shutting down.

But the charge carried something else. Something that Astrid Arkham needed to see before the metal husk she was in deactivated for good.

* * *

Astrid tried to move in her armor, but it was like trying to move through quick-dry cement.

Her helmet’s HUD blinked on and off, before the entire display started graying out.

But before it did, the image feed from her helmet’s eye slits… displayed something else.

It was a video.

She knew the people she saw in this video. She knew the room in which it took place. Astrid had committed it to memory. She knew what was happening, but…

...but it was from another angle.

It was from the other side of the room. The other side of the rec room at the very moment of her own birth.

As Clayface, Two-Face, Scarecrow, and The Joker helped Doctor Ingrid Karlsson deliver bouncing baby Astrid Arkham, she scanned the video, looking for some kind of evidence that what she was seeing was fake.

She found none.

A security guard holding a metal object entered the room.

The main lights of the rec room switched back on.

The security guard froze in terror at what he saw.

He threw the object in his hand…

...and accidentally killed Doctor Ingrid Karlsson in the process.

Baby Astrid and the three supervillains that saw her into the world were doused in Doctor Karlsson’s blood before the video cut out, and her armor finally shut down.

She stood there, her now useless armor weighing her down. In darkness. In silence.

Until finally she could hear Batman speak from beyond her helmet.

“Astrid… My dad didn’t kill your mom.”

* * *

Batman thought it would take some digging to find alternate angles of that rec room on the night of Astrid Arkham’s birth.

It turned out that, being as Arkham Asylum had been the beneficiaries of Wayne Enterprise money for well over thirty years before it was shut down, each administrator of Arkham Asylum was legally obligated to share surveillance footage with Wayne Enterprises to satisfy the curiosity of the board of directors that WayneTech equipment was not being used to hurt patients.

This footage had been on a hard drive in some Wayne Enterprises office ever since it had been submitted twenty-one years ago.

Batman felt as though Astrid Arkham needed to see it.

She considered it Astrid’s last chance. 

The Arkham Knight slowly moved her arms up to take her helmet off.

This was the first time Batman had seen Astrid Arkham without her helmet, and the sight made her wince. No more than a girl, was Astrid Arkham, twenty-one if the math held up. Shaved head, a multitude of scars on her face and scalp. And a missing left ear.

Astrid clenched her blue eyes shut, and started screaming. Screaming until her face turned red. Screaming until the suggestions of tears brimmed in her closed eyes.

And when those eyes opened again, they bored into Batman with pure hatred.

“DO YOU THINK THIS CHANGES ANYTHING?” Astrid yelled as she started removing clumps of worthless armor from her body.

“Ra’s al Ghul lied to me my whole life,” Astrid said in a voice that Batman was stunned to find so high and willowy. “So what? That just means he’s one more name on a long list of people I need to kill.”

Astrid had flung the boots of her armor off. Now she stood as a broad wall of muscle in nothing but a blue cotton bodysuit. And with bare feet, too.

“But you know what?” Astrid asked with wide, unhinged eyes as she stalked toward Batman. “That list… has _your name right at the top!”_

In an instant, it occurred to Batman to feel sorry for Astrid Arkham.

Here stood a woman whose whole life had been built on a lie. And now that it was gone, she would ride what that lie taught her all the way down to the ground. Astrid Arkham had nothing in her life but murder.

But then again, Orphan had nothing in her life but murder once upon a time as well.

Until she said no.

Until Cassandra Cain thought to save lives instead of take them. It was a wild and unprecedented jump in logic, a thought radical in its departure from how she had been trained and raised.

But she’d managed it. She’d managed it when she was a little girl.

Astrid Arkham, however, couldn’t even manage it in her twenties.

So no.

Batman didn’t feel sorry for Astrid Arkham at all.

Astrid threw a wild haymaker with her right fist.

And Batman caught it in her gauntlet.

With her left hand, Batman delivered a backhanded slap to the side of Astrid’s face, while also letting go of her fist.

Astrid staggered back, her face turning red. Batman’s gift for reading body language told her that Astrid just got embarrassed.

She advanced again with a lunge kick that Batman just wasn’t there for. She savagely jammed an elbow into Astrid’s collar bone, eliciting a yelp, and driving her back.

Astrid slammed into the wall on the opposite end of the alley, and Batman drove a knee into Astrid’s midsection, robbing her of her breath.

Then another.

Then another.

Then _another._

Astrid brought her left arm up to block the blows to her stomach, so Batman started laying in the knees even harder.

It took a few more until the loud snaps and the pained shriek from Astrid’s mouth told her that both of the bones in Astrid’s forearm had just shattered.

Batman grabbed Astrid by that destroyed left arm, and yanked her away from the wall. Astrid mewled pitifully, and dropped to her knees.

The Caped Crusader balled up her right fist, and…

**THWACK!**

Astrid’s left eye started visibly swelling.

**THWACK!**

A rivulet of blood started flowing from the top of Astrid’s newly demolished nose.

**THWACK!**

A rapid of claret fell from Astrid’s mouth and onto the street, with at least three teeth as company.

Astrid Arkham looked up at Batman, her one working eye broadcasting pure animosity, her swelling lips pulling back against two rows of teeth whose population had been lightly culled.

“I… will… kill… you… _Batman.”_

Cassandra Wayne’s eyes narrowed behind her cowl.

“But not today,” she said.

Batman brought up her fist, and…

**THWACK!**

The blow was so hard that Astrid’s chin almost broke itself against her own right shoulder. Batman let go of Astrid’s mangled left arm, and she collapsed to the foul concrete of the alley floor.

Batman stood above the ruin of the monster she could have become if the fates and furies that governed the Multiverse were but a mere fraction less kind.

And she let out her breath.

* * *

**ARKHAM ASYLUM**

**CLANG!**

**CLANG!**

**CLANG!**

**CLANG!**

Selina Wayne was possessed.

**CLANG!**

**CLANG!**

**CLANG!**

**CLANG!**

From his back on the floor, amidst the remnants of the table he’d been put through, Bruce Wayne could see his wife laying down heavy chair shots on the prone Ra’s al Ghul.

The Demon had curled up on the tile with his hands over his head. The black steel of the metal folding chair Selina yielded had started curling upward. Those thick shots landed on his arm, his back, even a few glancing off the top of his cranium. The impacts were so heavy that a halo of stray blood had formed on the floor around him. He had, in essence, made a Ra’s Angel.

But even this was too good to last.

Selina’s blood loss was catching up with her. The shots were getting lighter and lighter.

Until finally, Selina could not lift the mangled chair over her head anymore. She had taken to leaning against it, panting.

And slowly… Ra’s began to move.

Coated in blood and grime, The Demon stood over Selina, his green eyes resolute. He was quivering, though either from pain or rage, Bruce could not surmise.

Still panting, Selina looked up at him. She tried to lift the chair again, but couldn’t.

So she resorted to flipping him off.

His right hand shot out, clutching her by the throat. The chair she had been leaning against made one final clang on the floor as she dropped it. And The Demon still had enough strength in him to lift her up in the air by the throat with just one hand.

Bruce Wayne’s mind came alight with one word.

_NOW!_

His roaming hands explored the shards of the table he had gone through, and found a shard the relative size and pointiness of a butcher knife.

Summoning all the strength he still had left in his body, he grabbed the wooden table shard, got to his feet, and charged Ra’s al Ghul.

He rammed his shoulder into Ra’s al Ghul’s waist, causing him to drop Selina. She fell to the floor with an audible _plop!_

Their collision drove Ra’s into the wall, and his hands found Bruce’s wrist, until he saw what Bruce was trying to do.

Ra’s looked down at Bruce’s hand clutching a jagged shard of table…

...and started laughing.

“Are you _serious, _Detective?” Ra’s asked, smiling through pink teeth. “Have I finally driven you too far?”

More laughter. Ra’s shoved Bruce away. Given how weak Bruce felt, it wasn’t very hard for him to do so.

“Even when I have taken all else from you,” Ra’s said, “you still stood by your ideals. Only for you to abandon them now?”

The smile was still on his face.

“I don’t believe you,” Ra’s said. “Even now. Even at the end of everything. Batman... does not… ki--”

Bruce stabbed Ra’s in the stomach with the table shard.

And Bruce felt no small amount of joy in noticing that it wiped the smile off that smug asshole’s face.

Ra’s al Ghul’s green eyes bulged in his sunken sockets. He looked down at the fresh blood spreading across his ruined dress shirt, and spattering on the floor.

He looked back up at Bruce.

“I’m not Batman,” Bruce Wayne said, before driving the shard in deeper.

Ra’s groaned pitifully. His trembling right hand went for the pocket of his trousers… and produced a small black pellet.

It was a flashbang.

**POOF!**

Bruce’s vision went white. A ringing began in his ears.

As the ringing abated, he heard a woman’s voice.

It was Cassandra in his ear piece.

“Dad?’ Dad, come in. Do you copy?”

“I’m here,” Bruce said as he blinked away the stars in his eyes.

“How are things on your end?”

Bruce looked around.

Ra’s had used the flashbang as an opportunity to vanish.

Bruce looked around at all of the blood and destruction in the Arkham mess hall. 

“We’re fine,” he said.

“How did it go?”

Bruce sighed. “Judging from where I stabbed him, Ra’s will bleed out in three hours. He’ll be where he’s going in just under one. Are your people ready?”

“My people have been ready for days… Thank you, dad. Batman, out.”

Cassandra cut out.

Just the way she said it. _“Batman, out.” _ It sounded good on her.

Selina sat cross-legged on the floor. Bruce knelt down to get to her level, and heard his knees pop as he did so.

He reached into the interior of his leather jacket, and found a first aid kit.

“Hold still,” Bruce said as he got ready to re-stitch Selina’s head wound.

Pretty green eyes looked up from bloody brows. Her lips spread into a smile.

“What is it?” Bruce asked.

“This,” Selina said. “This is the last fight we’re ever getting into, isn’t it?”

Bruce sighed. The reality of that question fell onto Bruce as though it were a warm pillow, fresh out of the clothes dryer.

And so did the peace that followed.

“Yes,” Bruce said. “Yes, it is.”

Her hand reached out for his blood-slicked cheek. That smile of hers looked different to Bruce. Liberated from its usual sense of playful superiority, it approached the level of _sweetness, _even with all the blood. And sweetness wasn’t precisely an emotion with which Selina had ever associated herself. Until now, apparently.

“Sailor… it was fun while it lasted.”

* * *

**THE GOTHAM CITY SEWERS - FIFTY-TWO MINUTES LATER**

On Astrid’s first night in town, Ra’s al Ghul tasked her with securing this location.

The last Lazarus Pit in Gotham City.

The Demon’s pain was excruciating. He still held the shard of table in his abdomen. He dared not remove it until he stepped into the Pit.

Amidst the darkened bricks of the fetid sewer, Ra’s found the collapsed wall that led to the Pit.

But something was wrong.

He stepped through the wall in darkness, the length of the corridor ornamented by stonework crafted by an ancient civilization, leading to his quarry.

And when Ra’s got to the end, he felt horror stop his heart.

Lazarus Pits were a naturally occurring phenomenon, a chemical the Earth’s crust produced that could bring the dead back to life.

They were supposed to bubble a vivid green, their glow in seeming defiance of mortality itself.

But the Pit before which Ra’s al Ghul stood did _not _bubble or swirl. It glowed, to be sure, but the glow was a faint and dull yellow.

Someone had used it.

As his eyes stared unblinking at the now-useless Lazarus Pit, his mind recalled the words of the Cain girl.

Her little underground mapping project had led her to the Venom that he had needed to destroy Gotham City.

So it was not beyond the realm of possibility that she had found this final Lazarus Pit as well.

* * *

**WAYNE MANOR - THREE DAYS AGO**

**“WHAT?”**

Cassandra knew Conner would be mad.

She did not know that he would be Show-My-Whole-Ass-At-A-Wake mad.

Cassandra looked around this ancillary living room just off the main foyer. Diana, Kate, and Detective Chimp had just left, leaving only Harper Row and Jinny Hex over in the corner.

She took Conner’s hand and tried to lead him out of the room, only to find that Conner didn’t want to be led anywhere. Her body jerked, and she had to steady herself. And Conner still had a look of stunned betrayal on his face.

“Conner,” she said in a high whisper. “Can we talk about this somewhere else?”

He shook his head, sighing, his face turning a touch scarlet, before he decided to accompany her out of the living room.

They walked through the foyer, past the superheroic mourners, including Billy Batson, who had become _irredeemably sexy _since he entered his late twenties.

“Wait till we get to the Batcave,” Cassandra said. “Then you can start yelling at me.”

They made it to the East Wing study. Cassandra set the clock. The elevator revealed itself, and they stepped inside.

The elevator descended into the Batcave, past the soundproofing which meant no other Kryptonians could hear them.

“Okay,” Cassandra said. “Now.”

Conner turned to her, took a deep breath, and started bellowing.

**“WHAT DO YOU ** **_MEAN_ ** **DICK GRAYSON’S NOT DEAD?”**

He yelled at her with such force that her hair blew back. She needed to shift her feet and lean forward so she didn’t fly back into the wall of the elevator.

“I’m saying he _is _dead,” Cassandra said after a moment. “I’m also saying that I’m expecting a call in a couple of hours saying that Dick isn’t dead _anymore.”_

“How?” Conner asked. _“Why? _ What in God’s name are you planning?”

“Let’s just say,” Cassandra said, “that when Ra’s al Ghul has nowhere else to go… He’s not gonna be alone.”

* * *

**THE GOTHAM CITY SEWERS - NOW**

In his misery, Ra’s al Ghul heard a pair of bare feet pad up next to him on the stone floor of the chamber.

“Uh-oh,” a male voice said. “Looks like, uh… looks like someone used your Lazarus Pit, there.”

He turned his head to his left to look at the man standing next to him.

The fellow was wearing a white bathrobe. He had blue eyes, thick black hair, and a boyish smile that was all too familiar.

“Sucks to be you,” the very-much-alive Dick Grayson said, before rearing back and decking Ra’s in the face.

The Demon fell to the stone next to the wide open basin that contained what was left of the Lazarus Pit. After what he, Bruce, and Selina had put each other through, he didn’t have enough energy to put up a fight.

“I’ve heard,” Dick said as he bent over Ra’s, “that you’re not supposed to take the knives out of stab victims. Just makes ‘em bleed out quicker.”

Dick Grayson yanked the table shard out of Ra’s al Ghul’s stomach. The Demon pathetically groaned in pain as he closed his eyes and clasped his hands over his wound, feeling new, slick blood flow through his fingers.

“This looks like a piece of a _table,”_ Dick said. _“Jesus, _Bruce, what did you three do to each other?”

Ra’s heard a pair of boots step toward him.

A man’s voice said “Open your hands, you asshole, I have to cauterize your wound so you don’t bleed to death.”

Ra’s opened his eyes yet again.

In addition to Dick Grayson, there were two more people in the chamber.

The one in the middle was a woman, but she was standing too far away for Ra’s to recognize. Her silhouette, however, revealed her as a blonde.

But the one on the far left… was Superman.

And his eyes were glowing red.

“Superman isn’t supposed to want to hurt anyone,” Superman said. “So… don’t tell anyone how much I plan on enjoying this.”

Beams of Heat Vision shot out of Superman’s eyes, briefly illuminating the room in crimson, and superheated the wound in Ra’s al Ghul’s stomach, closing the flesh and stopping the bleeding.

That’s when The Demon passed out.

* * *

**WAYNE TOWER**

When they were seventeen, almost half of a lifetime ago, Orphan and Spoiler found a little balcony on Wayne Tower’s eightieth floor. It was out of the way, hidden from prying eyes, and afforded a breathtaking view of the city.

Batman and Catwoman raced each other there now.

And Catwoman won. Good for her.

She stood there with her hands on her hips as Batman planted her feet on the balcony.

“Why are we up here?” Catwoman asked. “I mean it’s nice and all, but I’m still hungry. Not that Big Belly Burger _closes, _but…”

“There’s something I have to do,” Batman said.

“Like what?”

Batman put her hands on the side of Catwoman’s face and went in for the kiss.

This was the first time they’d kissed up here.

Batman wanted more. As many times a lifetime could provide.

Batman finally pulled away and she saw, with no small amount of satisfaction, that Catwoman had to unroll her eyes.

“What else?” Catwoman asked softly.

Batman smiled. She took off her cowl. Cassandra Wayne shook out her short curtain of black hair, and ran to the edge of the balcony.

She stood eighty floors above the street, with no fear whatsoever for her own well-being. She knew that precious few could do that. Some gifts had been thrust upon her. Some had been given with genuine love. And for these, she was thankful.

Cassandra looked out at all eight million fellow citizens of the fog-shrouded Gotham City. The eight million to whose safety she would devote the whole of her body and mind for the rest of her life.

She stood on the top of this very building the Christmas Day after the Battle of Founders Island. The first day she was Batgirl. She remembered, looking out over this modern, gothic, heavenly, hellish place and deciding she’d keep it.

And her feelings had not changed since.

Cassandra Wayne had lied and omitted a lot over the past few days. To the people for whom she cared the most on Earth. She had no idea how the people in her wild, makeshift family would react to her when they saw her next, but seeing these titanic buildings sticking up from that blanket of fog, she knew the stakes. And she had no regrets.

She’d given the performance of a lifetime this week. So she looked out at her audience of eight million…

...and took a low, deep bow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, gang.
> 
> No Monday OR Thursday chapter.
> 
> The next one's gonna be a LOT, and I need the extra few days.


	35. Crime, Romance, and Biographies of Famous People

**Chapter 35: Crime, Romance, and Biographies of Famous People**

Should the need be felt to quantify the success of Batman’s return to public life in terms so crass and pedestrian as simple numbers, then let the following suffice.

There are, to this day, no firm statistics pertaining to the civilian casualties in the wake of The Siege of The Undying a decade and a half ago. There will be arguments and squabbles as to whether or not to count the citizens who turned on each other under the tragic and violent #WeGotBatman hashtag. Estimates come in at the low triple digits.

There were, however, firm numbers on how many died during the Battle of Founders Island a year-and-a-half after that. Three-hundred-seventy-seven Gotham citizens, as well as forty-eight superheroes, Aquaman, Beast Boy, Miss Martian, Lady Shazam, and Stargirl among their number.

And then, of course, there was Game Seven fourteen years ago, when 62,118 Gotham City residents lost their lives.

But tonight? The night that the monorail was hijacked? The number of civilian casualties on the night that would, in the coming years, become colloquially known as _“The Night the Line was Crossed?”_

**Zero.**

* * *

The local news reported the GCPD had secured the hijacked monorail on the Abernathy Bridge at 10:18 PM. Whereupon seemingly every last one of the eight million residents of Gotham City took a simultaneous and near-telepathically shared cue to go the fuck outside.

Neighbors who had previously lived in suspicion of one another finally made informal greetings. They introduced their _kids _to each other. They aimlessly looked at the night sky from fog-shrouded streets. On sixth street, a nun from Holy Family Catholic Church shotgunned a beer with a passel of passing frat boys from Gotham U. Over near the Tynion Ballroom on Miagani Island, a member of the Fifth Avenue Reds tagged a building alongside the cop who should, by all accounts, have arrested him.

The psychological weight that had been lifted from the city was almost palpable, and felt by all. They knew how big the city was, but only now, after Batman had returned in a visible way and saved them certain disaster, did they realize how fragile the whole thing was.

In the days, weeks, years, decades after The Night the Line was Crossed, the spontaneous mass celebration that followed was looked at under an academic lens, and many theories were put forward.

One was that it was simply Batman’s return that brought these folks to their feet. That after their grief, in their moment of fear, their protector had returned. That the grim had of fate that enjoyed raining blows upon Gotham City finally met its match.

Another, espoused by the more sentimental and romantic, claimed that this impromptu party after the all-clear had been given was the celebration of the World Series win that, by all rights, belonged to the city. Fourteen years too late, yet wholly deserved.

But that was for later. If one asked any of these people in the streets that night why their steps seemed light, why the glimmer shone in their eyes, the answer almost always would have been the same.

_“Hey, we got a monorail now! Ain’t that somethin’?”_

* * *

Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy were never seen in Gotham City again.

No one knows where they’d gone, but it was accepted as almost a fact that wherever they went, they went together.

* * *

**APARO STREET**

Batman and Catwoman rode together to Batcave North beneath the RH Kane Building. They showered and changed clothes in Cassandra’s apartment, which had had a new door installed after Stephanie and Cassandra’s scuffle a few nights prior.

From there they took a cab to the mainland, to the Big Belly Burger on Aparo Street where the teenage Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown had gathered in the old days. Where Cass had mooched fries off of Steph.

They took their old window seat. While Stephanie was at the counter, Cassandra got her phone out, and hit Duke’s name on her contact list.

“Hello?” a little girl asked.

“Hey, Izzy,” Cassandra said. “It’s Cass. Is your dad home?”

“Hi, Cass,” little Izzy Thomas said. “Daddy’s in bed.”

“Of course he is,” said Cass. “Tell him, uh… Tell him I said _‘Thank you,’ _okay?”

“For what?”

“For looking after my friend today. For doing a whole bunch of stuff in the past week.”

“Who’s your friend?”

“Well, that’s a long story, now isn’t it?”

“Oh,” Izzy said. “Okay. I’ll tell him.”

“Thank you, Izzy.”

After they’d said their goodbyes, Stephanie had come to the table with a tray full of food. They’d both gotten the new Mushroom Swiss burger and fries. Stephanie got a large fountain drink which, if Cassandra had to bet, must have been Diet Soder. Just like she got in the old days. Cassandra got a large chocolate shake.

“Thank you,” Cassandra said.

To which Stephanie replied, “Oh, you’ll be thanking me later. Repeatedly and at the top of your lungs. Still don’t know why I had to pay, though.”

“Because you’re richer than I am.”

“You’re Bruce Wayne’s daughter.”

“And Bruce Wayne isn’t dead yet.”

Stephanie must have been as hungry as she said she was. Cassandra hadn’t even gotten her straw into her shake before Stephanie had already unwrapped her burger and took a bite.

Cassandra smiled at Stephanie as she looked out the window.

Stephanie chewed, swallowed, and got lost in whatever she was staring at, a dreamy look falling over her.

“What is it?” Cassandra asked.

And then she herself looked.

It was at about this time that the spontaneous revelry among Gotham’s citizens had begun to show itself on this part of the mainland. A collection of about twenty or so people across the street just stopped to shoot the shit. Even from here, even through the window, Cassandra could hear laughter. Voices raised in genuine warmth.

“My God,” Stephanie said. “Look what you did.”

* * *

**ARKHAM ASYLUM**

It was around midnight when a black helicopter touched down on the ruins of Arkham Asylum.

Arkham Island was overrun with cops, but stepping off of the chopper, ARGUS Director Iman Avesta secured her credentials in her trench coat.

“Take me to him,” Iman said to the officer in charge.

Ra’s al Ghul had been delivered, hog-tied and unconscious, to Gotham’s Central Precinct. At about the same time, ARGUS received word in Washington DC (from Agent Conner Kent, who had been assumed dead) that the leader of the League of Assassins was in custody. Immediate invocation of Epsilon-level security clearance was brought down on the GCPD. Not only were the local authorities not to question Ra’s al Ghul or any of his men, but the man himself was to be escorted back to Arkham for the ARGUS pick-up.

Iman was taken down to the Inter-Patient Therapy wing, where Ra’s was being held in one of the three remaining plexiglass cells. He sat on the floor of the cell, cross-legged, bloody, and dazed. He only snapped to attention when he saw her, and immediately phased into a state of smug gloating. She was dressed in a black pantsuit, after all, and these supervillain types got defensive when someone smelled of Fed.

She folded her arms and looked him over for a bit before she started talking.

“Jesus,” Iman said. “They messed you up.”

Ra’s didn’t say anything. But that smirk of his got deeper.

“Let me tell you how this is going to go,” said Iman. “The GCPD has about a hundred-and-fifty of your guys in custody, both here and out in the city. In various states of horrifying ass-kick. Now, I can see from your stink-face that you think they’ll be subject to good ol’ fashioned American due process.”

She leaned on the plexiglass.

“But this is the reality of the situation,” Iman said. “You, those one-hundred-and-fifty men, and anyone else we pick up in connection to the little shitshow you’ve perpetrated on Gotham City this past week are being escorted to tents on the outside of the city, ready for transport to God knows where. The Demon, all The Demon’s horses, and all The Demon’s men are getting fucking _blacksited. _ All of them except this Astrid Arkham character. Someone’s swinging for this, and it’s going to be her.”

“Wherever you send me,” Ra’s said through split lips, “my protege will find me.”

“Well, now, there’s a problem with that,” said Iman. “It seems… that Astrid now knows about your little deception. She knows it wasn’t _Batman _who killed her mom.”

And with that, a glimmer of fear passed over the face of Ra’s al Ghul. Days like this, the job was worth it.

“She’s being sent to the Mariposa Mental Health Facility over in Bludhaven to see if she’s mentally competent to stand trial,” Iman said. “Whether or not Mariposa’s security is better now that Arkham Asylum’s was in the old days is anyone’s guess. But if she decides to install this place’s old revolving door, do you _really _want her looking for you?”

Ra’s got his shit-eating smuggery back on his face. Iman didn’t buy it.

“It also seems,” Iman said, “that Cassandra Wayne caught you with your pants down. You tried to high-tail it out of here having left all your equipment behind. All manner of laptops and hard drives brimming with information. Encrypted, to be sure, but ARGUS has nerds for that. That encryption will last, oh, forty-five minutes? After that, who knows what goodies we’ll find? Like, say… all your accounts and assets?”

She saw Ra’s narrow his eyes. Iman leaned in some more.

“The location of all the League of Assassins cells?”

Ra’s al Ghul’s eyes narrowed further.

_“Nanda Parbat?”_

With that last one, however, Ra’s al Ghul’s eyes almost instantly reverted back to their self-satisfied glint. Why, it was almost as though Ra’s didn’t perceive what she had just said as an actual threat.

“That’s right,” Iman said. “The ancient home of the League itself. After that, it’s just a hop, skip, and jump to the locations of all the remaining Lazarus Pits, which we will take upon ourselves to destroy by chucking bricks of sodium into them. So it seems that not only did Cass stop you, she stopped you _permanently.”_

She put her other hand on the plexiglass.

“The time you have left,” said Iman, “really is the time you have left. There are no resurrections after this. The rest of your life is going to be cells like this one in undisclosed locations, the inside of a courtroom as one of the fifty countries that want to try you for crimes argue with each other over who gets to actually do it, or bus rides between the two. You won’t have any money left, so you can’t bribe your supervillain friends to find you and bust you out. And you pissed all of them off, so even if you did have money, none of them would take it. The immortal Demon’s Head, who has lived for centuries, will die of old age in a government cell. He will be buried in a potter’s field. And when he is, I’ll be standing over the open hole with this look on my face.”

She briefly flashed a gigantic, toothy grin before she went back to being all business.

“The only clue I will give you as to the location of Nanda Parbat,” Ra’s said, “is that it is located in a sovereign nation. No United States military or governmental action will be tolerated. And provided it is, my people are everywhere. They will see you coming.”

“You’re right,” Iman said. “Officially, the US can’t do anything… but _unofficially?”_

She backed away from the plexiglass. Iman Avesta felt to the smugness seep from Ra’s, through the plexiglass, and onto herself.

“You’d need a strike team of ridiculously skilled soldiers from a military that doesn’t answer to the United Nations,” Iman said. “Now _that… that _I have in my back pocket.”

* * *

**SOMEWHERE IN THE INDIAN OCEAN**

Wouldn’t you know it? Iman was right. It took the ARGUS kids forty-five minutes to bust through the decryption on Ra’s al Ghul’s devices and find the coordinates for Nanda Parbat.

And it took another forty-five minutes for that strike team to be readied.

It was late afternoon over the blue waters of the Indian Ocean when a boom tube, provided by Cyborg from his position on the Justice League Watchtower, appeared.

And through this boom tube sailed three wooden longships.

They were from a bygone era, of a kind that sailed against the forces of Paris of Troy in the _Iliad. _ But of better materials, of a more advanced construction.

These ships were nothing, however, compared to the warriors that sailed them. They could be found walking along the decks, hanging in the rigging of the sails.

All female.

All brawny.

All skilled.

All _Amazon._

The admiral on the ship at the head of the three walked toward the mast of the ship, where two Amazon warriors congregated. She had her helmet beneath her arm.

The warrior on the right saw the admiral advancing, and folded her arms over her breast plate.

“I do not understand why we must take all of these… _Assassins… _alive,” the warrior said.

To which the admiral replied “The Americans are in charge of this one. Uncle Sam frowns on that sort of thing. At least officially. Trust me, I know.”

“I see,” said the warrior. “And is this the same Uncle Sam who expelled you from his military’s ranks for daring to love other women?”

The admiral--Kate Kane--smiled at this.

“Yeah,” Kate said. “But then again, how else could a girl win the heart of the Princess of Themyscira without being at least a little sentimental?”

“I see your point.”

“Good.”

As the warrior took to staring out at the sea alongside her compatriot, Kate took her helmet out from under her arm, and looked at it.

It was made of bronze. It covered the nose and forehead, but revealed the lower half of the face of whosoever wore it. The crown of the helmet terminated in two two-inch-long spikes like bat ears. Sewn into the interior of the helmet was a wig made from the hairs of a horse’s mane, each individually dyed a fiery red.

She put it on, lined up her eyes to the eye slits, and turned around.

Coming up behind her was Themyscira’s Princess, wearing the armor in which she had safeguarded the world since the 1940s. The afternoon sun glistened off of her tresses of black hair, and the color of her eyes almost matched the water beneath the ships.

She placed her hands on Kate’s bare shoulders, sticking out of her bronze breastplate.

“How fares the crew, Admiral?” Diana asked.

“True Amazons,” said Kate. “Ready to go invade Nanda Parbat under cover of darkness and say Hi to the League of Assassins?”

Diana looked Kate up and down with a greediness in her eyes that Kate only saw her display in private.

“My love,” Diana said, “I can think of... _one thing _I desire more.”

Wonder Woman just made a joke.

So Batwoman had to smile.

* * *

**WAYNE MANOR**

As the strike team from the Themysciran Navy set sail for the coordinates of Nanda Parbat given to them by Iman Avesta, a cab pulled up to the front of Wayne Manor at about two AM, local Gotham time.

From the rear of this taxi emerged Dick Grayson.

Sitting on the steps outside the main entry, after having cleaned up both Selina and himself before seeing her safely to bed, Bruce Wayne arose and walked toward him.

They met in the middle of the driveway for the first time in six years and embraced, before walking into the house through the grand foyer.

What they said to each other, Heaven only knows.

* * *

**OTISBURG**

The morning loomed gray and dour on Gotham City in stark contrast to the revelry the night before.

At eight AM, in the parking lot of the Oak Tower apartment building in the Otisburg section of Founders Island, Harper Row sat in the driver’s seat of her green Toyota, looking at the front door.

On the stoop outside, a man and a woman who looked to be in their sixties were talking warmly to a little girl of nine, with long dark hair. She was wearing jeans, and a powder blue t-shirt that featured a cartoon pig with chocolate on its lips on the front, over which, in hot pink, were the words _“YOWIE WOWIE!”_

This little girl was Matilda Ann Row-Drake, daughter of Harper Row and Tim Drake.

And the two elderly folks were Harper’s former in-laws, Jack and Janet Drake.

Harper got along with Jack and Janet. Nonetheless, Harper did divorce their little boy, so she wasn’t allowed in the apartment, Deputy Mayor or no Deputy Mayor.

After giving out hugs to Jack and Janet, Mattie-Ann began her walk to the Toyota.

Mattie-Ann was a weird kid. Quiet. More inclined toward reading in a corner than hanging out with other children. The scents of Chee-tos and orange soda had a habit of clinging to her.

And Harper Row felt nothing but pride and adoration. Because she herself had been a weird and off-putting kid when she was Mattie-Ann’s age. Indeed, if she and Tim had raised a child that got along with everyone, Harper would have looked upon herself with disappointment.

_Please God, _Harper thought. _Don’t let her hit high school, become a cheerleader, and start hazing the other girls. My heart couldn’t take it._

Mattie Ann opened the passenger door of the Toyota and said “Hi, Mom,” before entering and closing the door behind her.

“Hiya, Squirt,” said Harper.

After which they just sat there.

“We’re not moving,” Mattie-Ann said.

“No,” said Harper. “No, we’re not.”

Mattie-Ann blinked a couple of times, and said “Ohhhhhhhh,” before putting her seat belt on.

“Good girl,” Harper said, and she put the car in drive and eased out of the parking lot.

“How was your week at Grandma and Grandpa’s?” Harper asked.

“Fine.”

“Just fine?”

Mattie-Ann sighed and said “Grandpa stepped on my crayons.”

Woe be to those who stepped on Mattie-Ann’s crayons. Mattie-Ann could occupy herself for hours drawing strange little buildings and their strange little inhabitants. Try as both Harper and Tim did toward steering her to a tablet, it was crayons or nothing for Mattie-Ann.

“Did he say he was sorry?” Harper asked.

“Uh-huh,” said Mattie-Ann. “How was your week?”

Harper took a deep breath. Then another.

They came to a stop light.

“I want to tell you a story,” Harper said.

“Okay.”

“But when I tell you this story, I want you to swear to me you won’t tell anyone else Not even your father.”

Harper chanced a look over at Mattie-Ann before the light turned green. Her little girl’s blue eyes were as wide as saucers.

“Okay,” Mattie-Ann finally said.

Harper nodded as she stepped on the gas.

“Once upon a time,” Harper said, “there was Batman.”

“We have Batman now,” Mattie-Ann said. “I saw her on the news this morning.”

“Really?”

“Batman’s a woman now.”

“I know.”

“This is one of those things that’s going to take a long talk for me to understand, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Harper said. “But the point is, Batman’s been around for a while. In one form or another.”

“Okay,” Mattie-Ann said.

“Batman had friends,” said Harper. “First it was Robin. Then Batgirl. Catwoman was a bad guy, but she became a good guy. After that though? There was Batwoman. There was Orphan. There was Spoiler. And… there was Bluebird.”

Harper looked at Mattie-Ann for a bit before putting her eyes back on the street.

“Have you heard of Bluebird?”

“No.”

See, now, that caused Harper just the _eensiest _bit of internal pain.

“Well,” Harper said, “there was a superhero in Gotham City named Bluebird. She joined the Justice League for a little while, but then she had to quit.”

“Why did Bluebird have to quit?”

“Because,” Harper said, “she was pregnant with you.”

Harper could feel Mattie-Ann just _staring _at her.

“I was Bluebird,” Harper said. “I was a superhero.”

And the first question Mattie-Ann apparently thought to ask was:

“Does dad know about this?”

“I should hope so,” Harper said. “He was a Robin. But don’t tell him I said that.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Mattie-Ann just throw up her little hands.

“The thing is, though,” Harper said, “I want to be Bluebird again. And I’m asking for your blessing.”

“My blessing.”

“Yeah. It’s a fancy way of saying _‘permission.’”_

The seconds drug on as Mattie-Ann thought her little head off.

“What about your job as Second Mayor?”

“The word is _‘Deputy’ _Mayor.”

“What’s _‘deputy’ _mean?”

“Someone who’s the second-in-command.”

“So Second Mayor, then?”

“Fine,” Harper said. “Second Mayor. I will give up my job as Second Mayor. I’ll get to see you more.”

Mattie-Ann thought for a little longer, before she broke out something Harper herself said on occasion.

“Oh… I suppose.”

Harper smiled. “Thanks Squirt. Up for pancakes?”

“Yes, please,” Mattie-Ann said, lost in her own little world of what this all meant.

“Okay,” Harper said. “I should mention, though… you might be seeing more of your Aunt Jinny around the apartment.”

Mattie-Ann looked at her.

“Or,” Harper said, “there this, uhh… there’s this guy I knew in the old days named Billy who’s, uhh… I mean he got _really… _The point is, I’m keeping my options open, y’know what I mean?

After a beat, Mattie-Ann said “I don’t think I know _anything _anymore.”

* * *

**THE LOBIANDO CAFE**

Cassandra let Stephanie sleep some more in her bed after she arose this morning and got dressed. She lightly kissed Steph on her bare shoulder before she left.

She had stuff to do today.

The Lobiando Cafe was in the theater district on Miagani Island. A cab dropped Cassandra off right at the curb.

At one of the outdoor tables sat a teenage girl in jeans and a gray sweatshirt. She had a blonde ponytail. Eyes that Cassandra knew to be blue were hidden behind a pair of sunglasses.

To say that _“Cassandra stole Dick’s body from the morgue” _would be somewhat misleading.

It wasn’t Cassandra Wayne who physically busted through the wall of the Gotham City morgue and stole Dick Grayson’s corpse away to the Lazarus Pit in the sewers that gave him new life.

It was Cassandra Sandsmark.

Those who were dipped in the bubbling Lazarus Pits for their resurrection were subject to bouts of temporary insanity. Cassandra Wayne needed someone who could not only work single-handedly, but was strong enough to pacify Dick in the days after he came back to life.

Who better than Wonder Girl?

Cassandra Sandsmark, much like Kate Kane, had stopped aging once she became an Amazon. She had the same kind of holographic facial projector that Conner Kent had, showing an image to the world of a thirty-three year old when, without, she looked like the eighteen-year-old she did at present. She used this projector in her day job as Professor of Archaeology at Brown.

She was not using it now.

That these two women had the same first name had caused their mutual acquaintances confusion upon their initial meetings. It was agreed upon that Cassandra Cain would be called _“Cass,” _and Cassandra Sandsmark would be referred to as _“Cassie.” _ This narrative shall follow suit for the time being. 

“Have a seat,” Cassie said as she took a sip of her coffee. Cass did so.

“You’re looking chipper,” Cass said.

“I always do,” said Cassie. “I have croissants coming. In spite of the fact that I had to spend the last few days in a sewer, at least I got to see Dick Grayson naked. That one was on the bucket list right there.”

Cass smiled. “Congratulations.”

“And,” Cassie said, “I have payment coming my way.”

This was when Cass’ smile faded. An old feeling, like her territory was being invaded, came over her, and she had to work to stifle it.

“Cough it up,” Cassie said. “I want admission… from you… that it’s finally over.”

Cass nodded. Cassie did, after all, do her this solid, and this particular solid she did for a fee. It wasn’t the Amazon way, but the other Amazons didn’t need to know about this.

She reached into the interior of her black leather jacket, pulled out a folded piece of paper. She slid it across the glass tabletop over to Cassie.

Upon this piece of paper was written the personal phone number of one Conner Kent.

* * *

**AMUSEMENT MILE**

The Boardwalk Arcade at Amusement Mile was packed, even for a Saturday morning.

Among the pre-teen boys crowded around the ancient and damn-near-moldy _Street Fighter II _cabinet, among high school girls taking turns at the _Lord of the Rings _video pinball machine, _allllll _the way in the back, was a sight most curious.

Two men in their thirties, wearing suits, and playing Skee-Ball.

Jason Todd and Cullen Row placed their jackets on a barstool that was next to a table over in the corner. There they stood, in their shirtsleeves, rows of pink tickets going from the Skee-Ball machines themselves to the burgundy carpet.

“I read one time,” Cullen said as he hefted one of the big wooden Skee-Balls in his hand, “that in the absence of rivers, shores, or mountains, one will eventually find solace in the mall. This isn’t a mall, but is this solace for Jason Todd?”

“Yep,” said Jason. He rolled. Forty.

“This where you take all your boyfriends?” Cullen asked.

So buffaloed was Jason by the B word that his next roll arced, almost as though he threw it overhand. Twenty.

“I seem to have struck a nerve,” Cullen said. “Coming out still a gradual process for you?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” Jason said again. “If everyone in your boss’ little network needed to know I was into guys, then I would have told them. They didn’t need to know. I didn’t tell them.”

Cullen rolled a thirty, his meager line of tickets getting a small addition. “This a good ol’ fashioned commitment thing?”

Jason didn’t say anything. He rolled. Fifty, right in the center. Good for him.

“Well?” Cullen asked.

“It’s complicated,” Jason said.

“Uncomplicate it.”

Jason sighed, staring at the small fifty ring in the center as though it would provide clarity where all else did not.

“From birth to the age of fifteen, I was a street kid,” Jason said. “Hustled and stole my ass off. I didn’t have the perspective or the hindsight to think this back then, but it was like… It was like a flea living on the back of a blue whale.”

“Fleas don’t live on blue whales,” Cullen said.

“I know.”

“You don’t have the perspective or the hindsight to think this _now.”_

“I _know,” _Jason said again. “The point I’m trying to make is, I was this little thing on the back of a big thing. A street kid in big, bad Gotham City. And it wasn’t like Gotham didn’t know about me, but it’s that if they did, they wouldn’t care. Just one tiny person in this huge leviathan of a place. I am insignificant in the universe. I can control nothing… except my Skee-Ball score. So when things got big and scary, I used whatever little I had that I didn’t need at that moment to come down here… to this _genuinely _shitty place that hasn’t had a paint-job in thirty years, and play.”

“Okay,” Cullen said right after he rolled a twenty. “Then what?”

“Then,” Jason said, pausing to look around and ascertain to his satisfaction that no one would hear him, “I became a… an _assistant_ _vigilante.”_

“Uh-huh.”

“For a year.”

“Right.”

“And then I was murdered by a clown.”

Cullen didn’t have anything to say to that.

Jason sighed, and rolled himself a thirty. More pink tickets spewed out.

“After that, things get weird,” Jason said. “I’m pretty much still dead. My corpse is in the Wayne Manor mausoleum. But Harmonia reconstructed me out of Fifth Dimensional energy to help out with her Destroy the Multiverse plan that didn’t work. My understanding is that the whole Fifth Dimensional thing runs on possibility. The only reason I was able to be reconstructed here is bec--”

“Because the Earth Zero Jason Todd was resurrected, but you weren’t resurrected here on Earth Eight-Oh-Three,” Cullen said.

Jason blinked at him.

“I was actually in the Batcave when Mister Mxyzptlk explained how all this worked,” Cullen said. “But, y’know, continue.”

“I was reconstructed as a twenty-year-old,” Jason said. “But the years between fifteen and twenty are missing. Just a little stretch of black that was gone in an instant. Beaten to death by a crowbar one second, and a Greek Goddess is welcoming me back into the world the next.”

Jason rolled a twenty. Pathetic, really.

“Now I’m thirty-five,” Jason said. “I’ve lived just as long on one side of that stretch of blackness as I have on the other. Older I get, you know what I realize?”

“What’s that?”

“I… _really _needed those five years.”

Jason finally decided to look over at Cullen.

“Fifteen-to-twenty has to be where a lot of the work of being a person is done,” Jason said. “That place you build on for the other stuff that comes later. Tastes evolve, sure, but they have to start somewhere, right? I have no decorations in my apartment because there’s barely a teenage me to develop a rudimentary aesthetic. I just listen to whatever’s on the radio because I didn’t have a Punk phase. Or a Goth phase. Or a Pop phase. Or a Whatever phase. So I’m just… kinda… floating.”

“So… does this mean I’m the one who took your virginity?” Cullen asked.

Jason snorted. _“Please. _ I can get my one night stand on like no one’s business. But, again, I’m thirty-five, and the time I have left with that is limited. But because I don’t know who I am, I’m not going to task anyone with helping me find out. Up to and including you. It’s not your job.”

“What you’re saying is you don’t know who you are, thus negating any attempts at a relationship or a meaningful connection.”

“You don’t think dating an empty shell is a dealbreaker?”

“First,” Cullen said, “no it isn’t. Second, it isn’t a dealbreaker because _everyone has that problem.”_

Cullen rolled a thirty, and then huffed.

“The thing that screws most people up is the myth of the finish line,” Cullen said. “That there’s this arbitrary stopping point where everything’s figured out. You know how everything works. No, you fucking don’t. Everyone’s a work-in-progress. Everyone learns. Everyone changes. Doesn’t matter if you’re fifteen and dead, thirty-five and alive, or you’re Wonder Woman and the whole time thing is just kinda quaint for you. You don’t get to tell yourself what kind of person you are. That job is for other people. Your job is to make changes where necessary. Within reason. Don’t sway one way or another like a limp dick, just believe people when they tell you you’re hurting them. And that’s inevitable because that comes part and parcel with life.”

Jason pondered that for a second, before he asked “What’s my defining trait as a person?”

Cullen smiled and said “That you won’t lift a finger to hurt another person even under pain of death. Trust me, as far as defining traits go, that’s a pretty good one.”

He rolled a twenty before he turned to Jason and said “I’m out of tokens. You?”

Jason nodded, and said “Yeah.” Which was a lie. He still had one left, but he felt like doing things with Cullen that were normal right now, and not an outgrowth of a seemingly permanent existential crisis.

Cullen got their suit jackets off the bar stool, and they walked off arm in arm. They came upon a little girl in a jean jacket, upon whose grateful personage Jason Todd bestowed his Skee-Ball tickets.

“Awwwww,” Cullen said.

“There might be another kid around you could give yours to,” Jason said.

“Fuck no. I’m trading mine in.”

Cullen hemmed and hawed over his potential purchases at the counter with what few tickets he had as Jason looked at the _Street Fighter II _machine over near the entrance from the boardwalk.

The time scores came up on the screen, and Jason noticed that there was a TOD in third place.

When Jason was a kid, he got on that board with E. Honda, and used TOD as the three letter name with which to enshrine himself in the pantheon of kids with too much time and spare change on their hands.

But it couldn’t be the same score. It just _couldn’t _be.

Cullen nudged him with his elbow, and Jason turned.

In Cullen’s hands, proffered to Jason as though it were an offering to a noble by a revering and grateful subject, was a right red pencil eraser.

“It’s early in our relationship,” Cullen said, “but I hope you’ll take this expensive, precious, and altogether irreplaceable gift.”

He took it as Cullen kissed him on the cheek.

Jason Todd’s boyfriend had just given him a pencil eraser.

He figured that it had to start somehow.

* * *

**MARIPOSA MENTAL HEALTH FACILITY, BLUDHAVEN**

In a padded cell, in bright orange scrubs and a cast on her left arm, Astrid Arkham looked at the two-way glass of her observation cell, and let her imagination go to work.

She woke up here. No one had been to see her yet.

But she knew who was on the other side of that glass. Men and women in white coats who would pass judgement on her, while not meriting any kind of favorable judgement themselves.

Astrid knew that the people on the other side of that glass shook with glee upon the return of Batman. And for this, Astrid would collect their heads. She would collect _all _of them.

That Ra’s al Ghul lied to Astrid her entire life really did change nothing. The Demon was just one more corpse that she would make from a living soul. Just another on a long, long list.

Astrid ran her tongue over her broken mouth, smiled to herself, and let her imagination go further.

She was in an asylum, only as a patient instead of a leader. And that meant she shared this space with kindred spirits. The Lost, the Sad, and the Dangerous. Astrid remembered that the former occupants of Arkham Asylum were the people her mother tried to help, only for them to be crammed back into that dark place with black eyes and broken bones just like she was now. Victims of a status quo that would not permit them.

Victims of the _Batman._

She toyed with the idea of revealing Cassandra Wayne’s identity to the first doctor to check in on her. But it was an idea that she swiftly discarded. They would arrest her, after all, thus making her hard to find once Astrid, inevitably, broke out of this place.

Why should she spoil her own fun?

And why should she deny herself a meaningful connection with all of the new friends she was about to make?

It was almost as though Astrid could feel them in this place with her. Feel these sad and broken people teetering at the edge of an inner precipice, just waiting to be convinced that jumping was a good idea. All the madness and mania that could be directed to one focal point.

Gotham City.

Batman.

Astrid flattered herself that her eventual ministrations to the mentally ill within this asylum would be the second coming of angry ghosts. Of people like Clayface, and Two-Face, and Scarecrow, and The Joker. Those driven to extremes and bloodshed because Batman used his fists to tell them that they couldn’t be helped. That they didn’t belong.

She smiled even wider now, closing her eyes, almost giddy from the sweet scent and golden glow of possibility!

Astrid was still a leader. Still a general. But of a new breed of warrior. She would not raise an army, but rather a loose confederate of individuals that she would help shape and direct, that she would aim at Gotham City to let them reap their pain and torment and trauma in hot blood and terrified screams.

Oh, she would kill Cassandra Wayne. This much was certain. They were distorted fun-house mirror images of each other. This planet would not suffer the two of them to live at the same time. They would come into conflict again and again and again until there was one winner.

And if it took forever, then… well… forever would be how long it took.

* * *

**WAYNE TOWER**

A week ago, Aaliyah Ramsay had taken a long and terrifying elevator ride up to the top of Wayne Tower, alone, her parents having died along with the rest of her hometown.

Now, the hometown was still gone, but her mother and her father had survived three separate brushes with death between them in the past seven days.

Another thing that was different was that this time, the elevator was going to the sub-basement.

David Hyde and Talia al Ghul stood behind her. Talia was wearing her standard leather jacket, dress pants and a white blouse. Cassandra had taken the liberty of sending over a charcoal gray suit for David, just so the security guys didn’t hassle him. He opted not to wear the tie, but Aaliyah could hear him unbuttoning the second button on his black dress shirt. Aaliyah’s father was an aggressively blue collar guy. That suit must have been torture.

They were headed to the sub-basement to meet Cassandra, and for the life of her, Aaliyah had no clue why.

The elevator opened in a cement room as big as a football field, lit by innumerable rows of fluorescent lights in the high ceiling. There was no furniture in the place, and Aaliyah’s eyes were drawn to age-old scorch marks here and there, blackness blemishing the dreary pedestrian gray of the concrete.

_This must be where they blow shit up and test gadgets, _Aaliyah thought.

In the middle of this room was the black and ungainly Batmobile. Leaning against the driver’s side were Cassandra and Carrie.

Aaliyah’s first instinct was to wave at Carrie and say Hi, but she felt the iron grip of her father’s left hand clamping down on the shoulder of her red t-shirt. And a glance over by the Batmobile saw Cassandra do the same to Carrie.

Cassandra stepped away from the Batmobile and walked toward them, while David walked past them, toward her.

“Stay here, babygirl,” David said to Aaliyah as he hobbled toward Cassandra, his right hand using a wooden cane.

The first Black Manta and the second Batman met in the middle of the room. She looked down at her, and she peered right back up at him, both maintaining a silence that was as deafening as it was tense.

A look of completely dumbfounded surprise instantly snapped across Cassandra’s face, which was the first sign Aaliyah got that something that wasn’t supposed to happen was going to happen right the hell now.

At which point David dropped his cane, spread out his arms, and wrapped Cassandra in a tight hug.

“That… was… _amazing! _” David said.

Cassandra struggled to breathe in the embrace. “Um… Thank you?”

David finally let her go. Aaliyah shared Cassandra’s confusion. The last time the two of them had seen each other, Cassandra had shot Talia and kicked David in the face.

At least Cassandra was nice enough to kneel down and retrieve David’s cane for him.

David’s face, lacquered in scars both new and old, broke into an even wider beam.

“I heard you were an actress,” David said, “but I didn’t know you were that good. You do that _method _shit?”

Before he turned and looked at Talia. “Baby, I bet she does that _method _shit!”

Talia smiled and rolled her eyes at the same time, before she looked at Cassandra. “I knew you were up to something the moment I hit the floor after you shot me. Who do you think taught David Cain the secrets of the human body that he, in turn, taught you?”

“The League of Assassins?” Aaliyah asked.

Talia nodded without looking at Aaliyah, before taking a few steps of her own toward Cassandra.

“Both David and I would die to protect Aaliyah,” Talia said. “Shedding a miniscule amount of blood is a bargain in the grand scheme of things. You saved my daughter, and stopped my father. The latter seemingly permanently, which is something both I and your adoptive father have failed to do. Though we must use new names, it seems we can come out of hiding for the most part. We can breathe again. And for this… I am grateful.”

And with this, Talia bowed her head. Not deeply. Just enough to show gratitude.

“Please stop that,” Cassandra said.

So Talia did.

“I need to have a few words with Aaliyah, if that’s okay,” Cassandra said, before she cast her eyes Aaliyah’s way. “You mind taking a walk with me?”

“Can they come too?” Aaliyah asked as she pointed to her parents.

“I don’t see why not,” Cassandra said. And so, the assembled party walked toward the Batmobile.

“So do you have any shows coming up?” David asked. “After what you pulled, I _have _to see you on a stage.”

“Nothing yet,” Cassandra said. “But there are a few auditions that look interesting.”

“Drop us a line,” David said. “We’ll make the flight.”

“In any event,” Talia said, “I should tell you where we end up once we finally settle there. We should… have a _girls _night.”

“We should,” Cassandra said, in a tone of voice that told Aaliyah that there would be no girls night.

Once they made it to the Batmobile, Aaliyah and Carrie finally waved Hi to one another.

“You know what this is about?” Aaliyah asked.

“No clue,” said Carrie.

Cassandra turned, looked at Aaliyah, and said “First thing’s first.”

She took a small black object out of her leather jacket and clicked it. The roof of the Batmobile slid open. Cassandra reached in…

...and pulled out a two-by-four, which she then handed to Aaliyah.

She remembered what Cassandra had said to her last night when Superman brought Aaliyah to her cell in Arkham.

_When all this cools down, I will give you one shot to hit me in the face with a two-by-four as hard as you can._

“You were serious about that?” Aaliyah asked as she held the two-by-four in both hands.

“Of course I was,” Cassandra said. “Why would I lie about that?”

“I… I just… _Why?”_

“Superheroes have it easy,” Cassandra said. “We’re only held accountable by the people we want to be held accountable by. I’ve heard horror stories of Bruce doing to his friends and family what I did last night, and them never trusting him again for it. I like you, Aaliyah. And I respect you. And someone who likes and respects you should not have scared you as badly as I did yesterday. It needed to be done… but it also needs to be paid for.”

Cassandra tilted her head to the side, and Aaliyah could hear the bones in her neck pop. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Aaliyah looked at the hunk of wood in her hands, before she looked back at Cassandra.

“I… I can’t do it.”

Cassandra simply looked at Aaliyah for a few moments, before a beneficent smile broke across her face.

“You know,” Cassandra said, “they say that mercy is th--”

**CRUNCH!**

It was as though an unseen and unnameable force from the thin spiritual layer of the very Earth seized control of her hands, and brought the two-by-four across the side of Cassandra’s face. She had hit Cassandra so hard that the two-by-four _shattered._

Aaliyah was aware of three things, frozen snapshots in time that she would take with her to the next life.

The first was Carrie, reeling back with her arms out and this stunned look on her like that one Dallas cop in the photo of Lee Harvey Oswald getting shot.

The second was Cassandra screaming “FUCK!” in horror and pain as she fell to the floor.

And the third was her father starting to laugh.

Carrie helped Cassandra up. There was blood coming out of her left ear, and dribbling onto her leather jacket.

David, attempting to ride his laughter out, asked “Aren’t… _aren’t you supposed to read body language or something?”_

“Yes,” Cassandra said as she got a tissue from the interior of her jacket and pressed it to her ear. She looked at Aaliyah and asked “How did you do that?”

Aaliyah looked down at the half of the two-by-four in her hands, before dropping it as though it were on fire.

“I... I don’t _know,” _Aaliyah said. “I said I didn’t want to, and I really didn’t, but… I just… did it anyway. I am _so _sorry!”

“Boss,” Carrie said to Cassandra, "I love you, but had that coming.”

Cassandra shrugged, before checking the tissue for blood from her ear. She wadded it up, put it back in her jacket, and tried to collect herself.

“Superman told me on the phone last night that you had moves,” Cassandra said. “Being on the receiving end is convincing. And it leads nicely into what I’m going to say next.”

She got that small black clicker back out, and held it in both hands, seemingly pondering, before she spoke yet again.

“Gotham City is coming back,” Cassandra finally said. “I can feel it in the air. But there are certain things Gotham needs. Gotham needs Batman. Gotham needs Catwoman.”

“Gotham needs Robin,” Carrie said with a shit-eating grin.

It was then that Cassandra clicked the device in her hand.

A section of the concrete wall receded and slid back, revealing something inside.

It was a suit of black armor, complete with a cowl with two protrusions sticking up from the crown. Cape with a hot pink lining. Black utility belt that blended in with the rest of the armor. Hot pink Bat symbol across the chest.

And it was with dawning astonishment that Aaliyah realized that the dope-as-fuck armor in that compartment in the wall… was just her size.

“Gotham,” Cassandra said, “needs Batgirl.”

Aaliyah stared at the armor with her mouth open.

“The Bat has only ever been freely given just the once,” Cassandra said. “And that was to me. I know it’s hard to appreciate how important this is, but believe me when I say it’s big.”

Aaliyah kept staring.

“Let me lay out the next couple of years of your life, should you say yes,” Cassandra said. “Private education in Gotham, paid in full. Your pick of any apartment in the RH Kane Building. A Wayne Foundation grant, which basically means you have walking around money in a very expensive city. And then you graduate high school when you turn eighteen. College? Paid for. Should you so wish, you can keep being Batgirl. Should you so wish, you can get another costume, pick your own identity, and go anywhere in the world under the umbrella of the Justice League, who will accept you and provide a stipend. Saving lives and providing hope can be your full-time job. I know it’s a lot, but… but we need you.”

Aaliyah finally found her tongue. “Shouldn’t, uh… Shouldn’t you have my parents’ permission first?”

“She hasn’t asked,” Talia said, “because she knows what the answer is.”

Aaliyah turned and looked at her mother.

“You are the Granddaughter of The Demon,” Talia said. “Foul as Ra’s al Ghul is, he believed his line was destined for greatness, and that is a belief I share. Take the Bat, Aaliyah. Write your legacy with fire. And when you save the world, it will be to an al Ghul that they look with gratitude.”

Aaliyah had to will her mouth to stay closed. She looked from her mother, back to the armor in the wall. Aaliyah Ramsay took a deep breath, looked Cassandra Wayne in the eye, and said:

“No.”

Cassandra had to blink a couple of times. “I beg your pardon?”

“No,” Aaliyah said again. “I’m-- _No. _ I don’t want to.”

Cassandra nodded, the corners of her mouth listing down. “I respect your decision, but, um… Would you mind elaborating?”

Aaliyah put her hands on her hips. “Cass, I made friends with Carrie, hung out with superheroes, and slept in a mansion for the past seven days, and it was _still _somehow the worst fucking week of my life.”

“Language,” Talia said. 

But Aaliyah was undeterred. “The worst _fucking _week of my life. _ I watched my mom get shot! _ I know you know your gun-fu, and I know everyone in this room is cool with it except me, but _I’m _still not cool with it, and my opinion matters. I was a cheerleader in a dinky town in North Carolina eight days ago, and that seems like _paradise _after what I’ve been through. Superheroes didn’t start dying and then coming back, and North Carolina didn’t smell like _pee! _ Dear _God, _the pee smell! _And no one says anything about it!”_

She turned to her dad. “Where did you say we were going after this? Michigan? With the Michiganders?”

Aaliyah didn’t even wait for David to reply, before she turned back to Cassandra.

“Yeah,” Aaliyah said. “Michigan. Sounds great. Go Wolverines. Carrie, you have my--”

“Yep,” Carrie said, an amused smile on her face. 

“Okay,” Aaliyah said. “It’s been real, Cass. Thank you, fuck you, bye.”

And with this, Aaliyah turned and tried to march her parents back to the elevator. It was slow going, what with David using a cane and all.

They hadn’t gone a few feet before Carrie Kelley decided to open her mouth some more.

“Y’know,” Carrie said. “I was thinking of getting my own version of Young Justice started.”

The family stopped, and Aaliyah turned around.

“What?”

“Young Justice,” Carrie said. “It was a teen superhero group that Tim ran when he was Robin. Harper was in it, too. That was the big romance in that group.”

Aaliyah tried to set Carrie on fire with her eyes as Carrie continued.

“Why can’t I have my own?” Carrie asked. “Let’s see… There’s me… Arsenal has a sidekick named Speedy. See, Arsenal used to be Speedy for Green Arrow, and Green Arrow got mad at Arsenal because he took the Speedy name and gave it to his _own _sidekick. In any event, Speedy’s cool, you’ll like him. So there’s us two, plus Supergirl… and Superboy.”

Aaliyah’s breath caught in her throat. The world kinda got a little swimmy there for a second.

_Jon…_

If Aaliyah got back on that elevator, the only ways she would ever see Jon “ _Superboy” _Lane-Kent again would be on TV, or on her phone. Not up close.

And that would be tragic.

Tragic for _Jon._

Spending the rest of his life not being looked at by Aaliyah Ramsay bordered on the unspeakable. It would be like letting the audience at a tractor pull into the Louvre. Would they see the art? Yes. But would they appreciate it? _ Hell _no.

All it would take to save Jon Lane-Kent from a dire fate of being beheld the rest of his days by people who weren’t Aaliyah, who couldn’t appreciate a wholesome and altogether tasty...

“Eh, never mind,” Carrie said. “We’d need a fifth. And where the hell would we get one?”

All it would take was for Aaliyah to get into a silly costume and punch bad guys here in the Pee City. Saving the day _and _providing her silent expertise and quiet connoisseurship of the male form? It was philanthropy, really. She’d be the new Mother Teresa. All _she _did was make soup.

But still…

“The offer’s still open,” Cassandra said. “It’s open for as lo--”

Maybe it was because the woman who shot her mom right in front of her had interrupted a very pleasant thought, but Aaliyah, in frustration, threw up her hands and said _“Give me a second!”_

Cassandra too raised her hands. Not in frustration. Like she was being held up.

“Okay,” Cassandra said. “I just--”

“Will you _give _me a _second?”_

* * *

**BRADLEY INVESTIGATIONS**

When Tim had been arrested, Conner Kent, bro that he was, had made time to come back to the Bradley Investigations offices in the East End, and lock up for him.

Tim came in this morning to find that nothing had been stolen. Conner showed up a couple of hours later to hang out for a little bit until he had to fly back to DC.

They both had their feet up on the desk.

“How did everyone take it?” Conner asked.

“Well,” Tim said, “everyone was mostly fine with it. I think Bruce was actually proud. Violet wasn’t, because she doesn’t like surprises. Dinah was pissed because she’s a nice person. And because she’s proxy pissed for Babs.”

“You think Barbara’ll be upset when she wakes up?”

“Oh _shit _yes,” Tim said. “Not only did she get totally destroyed, which isn’t gonna put her in a good mood, but her actions could have fucked up Cass’ plan. Because Barbara going down in that sewer was the one thing that Cass didn’t predict, and it could have given the whole game away. My prediction is that Babs is gonna feel stupid, but she’s gonna warp that into being mad at Cass for not letting her in on what she was doing. Things are gonna be frosty in Gotham for a while, so yeah, get back to DC while you can.”

“You don’t think Dick not being dead might brighten her up some?”

Tim shook his head. “She’s gonna be mad at herself over grieving for someone who wasn’t dead, which she’ll turn into being mad at him for not contacting her as soon as he came back to life.”

“So she’s gonna be mad at two different people for completely contradictory reasons in order to cover up for the fact that she feels like Boo-Boo the Fool?”

“Barbara Gordon is a genius,” Tim said. “She can do that.”

Conner nodded. “How’d the gang take it?”

Tim knew he was referring to their former Young Justice compatriots. “Harper was fine with it. I called the rest and told them what was what. Jinny and Bart are not fans of Cass right now. Anita was happy to find out you were still alive… and I haven’t been able to get a hold of Cassie.”

“And how about you?” Conner asked.

“Nothing gets to me,” Tim said. “You know that.”

“Uh-huh,” said Conner. “So how come Cass told me you almost killed a guy when you saw me go into the ocean?”

Oh… That…

“I’m not gonna say thank you,” Conner said. “Killing people being wrong and everything. But it’s nice to know at least you’ll be going to my funeral.”

Tim Drake and Conner Kent were two men who were on the verge of emotional openness with each other. Clearly this could not stand.

“Aren’t you permanently eighteen?” Tim asked. “You’re gonna outlive us all.”

Conner let out a bark of laughter, before he took his feet off the desk and stood up. He straightened his suit jacket, and hit the thing on the back of his head that made him go from eighteen to thirty-three.

“I gotta head out,” he said.

Tim stood as well. “Yeah, Harper’s bringing Mattie-Ann over, and then we’re going to the movies.”

Conner opened his arms and said “Bring it in.”

They hugged before they walked to the door.

Tim opened it, only to see Harper and Mattie-Ann just standing there, with Harper’s fist up, about to knock.

“Speak of the devil,” Tim said.

“Hey,” Harper said. “Hey, Conner.”

As Conner hugged Harper in the doorway, Tim looked down at his daughter.

“Hey, Princess.”

“Hi, Daddy,” Mattie-Ann said, before she hugged him around the waist. He patted her on the back. She was getting tall.

“I have crayons and printer paper in the desk,” Tim said. “Go nuts.”

“Thank you,” Mattie-Ann said, before she walked over to the desk, relieved from it her implements of artistry, and got to work.

“You feeling alright?” Conner asked.

“Yeah,” Harper said. “I have to go back home and drum up a letter of resignation.”

“You’re resigning? From City Hall?”

“I’m… picking up old habits,” Harper said, and winked.

“Huh,” Conner said. “Well, I’ll--”

Tim heard the high sound of Conner’s phone vibrating. With raised eyebrows, he fished it out of his suit jacket, and looked at the number.

“Private,” Conner said. “Huh.”

Conner answered it.

“Hello?” he asked. “Oh, hey! I… Um… Well… I mean, that’s… Ummmmm... Sure. Yeah… I can make it. I mean, you know I can… Um… Yeah, yeah, that works great. Okay. Thanks… See ya… Okay, bye.”

He put his phone back into his suit jacket, and as he did so, his face broadcast a sort of surprise that just… lingered past the initial stages. A perpetual Oh Shit moment, the proportions of which Tim could only speculate upon.

“That was Cassie Sandsmark,” Conner said.

“Oh,” Harper said. “Hmm.”

“I mean, we saw each other last night, when…”

He looked at Mattie-Ann, coloring her heart out at Tim’s desk, before he stilled himself.

“First,” Conner said, “I have no idea how she got this number. Second… she asked me out on a _date.”_

The last word of that sentence hadn’t gotten out of Conner’s mouth all the way, before Harper started laughing. The kind of loud and snorty laughter one was supposed to grow out of when puberty set in.

She ran a hand down her reddening face, before saying “Hey, hey, that’s… that’s great, isn’t it? I mean you two--”

“Great couple,” Tim said, trying to pick up the slack. 

Conner huffed. “I dunno. We know each other for over fifteen years, we’re great friends, and she asks me out on a date. It just… seems a little out of nowhere, doesn’t it?” 

Tim’s immediate instinct was to look at Harper. Her smile faded a little, and the corner of her lip started twitching. And Tim knew from his years married to her that this was the look she got on her face before she exploded.

Instead, however, she craned her neck to look at Mattie-Ann.

“Squirt?”

Mattie-Ann looked up. “Yeah, mom?”

“When I see you again, remind me to tell you how every man is an idiot except your father.”

Harper spared Tim a glance before looking back at Mattie-Ann. “And even that’s debatable.”

Mattie-Ann sighed, looked down at her drawing, and said “I’m too young for this.”

“So am I,” Harper said, before looking at Conner. “I’ll walk you downstairs, genius, you might hurt yourself.”

They exchanged their adieus, and Conner and Harper left. Tim closed the door behind them, walked to the desk, and plopped himself down at the chair across from Mattie-Ann.

“Have you made up your mind about which movie you want to see?” Tim asked.

Mattie-Ann, still coloring as she spoke, said _“United.”_

“Is that the one with James Ferrin? The one with the octopus in the trailer?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Think that one might be a little too big for you?”

“I am a giant, Father.”

“Okay.”

“I am _enormous.”_

“Okay,” Tim said, smiling at the odd and peculiar adorability of his only child, when another knock came upon the office door.

“Guess Conner left something here,” Tim said as he got up. He answered the door.

It was not Conner .

It was Violet Paige.

Standing there in torn up jeans and a red t-shirt beneath a black leather jacket, Violet entered the office without being invited in.

Tim did not know how she found this place.

Then he remembered that he ran a public business, and _everyone _could find this place.

“Hey,” Violet said.

“Um… Hey,” said Tim. “Can I, uh… can I help you?”

“It’s the daytime,” Violet said, “I’m bored, and I want… to…”

Violet trailed off when she saw Mattie-Ann. They looked at each other like cats who had seen each other from behind windows on opposite streets. A kind of mild curiosity mixed with an equally mild fear.

“Hello,” Violet said.

Mattie-Ann just waved.

“I’m Violet.”

“I’m Mattie-Ann.”

Tim knew he needed to say something, but he didn’t know what. He opened his mouth mid-theory, only for his phone to ring. He had left it in the office bathroom, as he did on occasion.

He looked from Mattie-Ann to Violet before he softly said “Please don’t swear in front of my child.”

Violet looked at him with great annoyance. “What kind of fu--What kind of _barn _do you think I was raised in?”

“Uh-huh,” Tim said. “Just…”

And the phone was still ringing from inside the bathroom. He held up his finger, signalling that he’d be a minute, and went to the lavatory to take the call.

It was work shit. A woman named Heidi Simmons was of the impression that her husband Ivan was cheating on her. She requested the man get a tail, and Tim was more than happy to provide such a service for a nominal fee. Heidi would come into the office tomorrow at one PM to set everything up.

Tim slipped the phone into the pocket of his jeans, and left the bathroom.

What he saw when he came back into the office proper was Violet, who had pulled a chair from one side of the desk to the other. She was sitting next to Mattie-Ann, and watching her color.

“What are those?” Violet asked.

“Those are Gremlings.”

“Gremlins?”

_“Gremlings. _ They’re like Gremlins, only smaller.”

“Ohhhhhh.”

“And they live in shoeboxes next to a castle.”

“Who lives in the castle?”

“King Derrybare.”

“Is he a good king?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t go overboard on taxing the Gremlings?”

“No.”

“That’s good. I mean, they live in shoeboxes. How much more money is King Derrybare gonna get out of them?”

“Good point.”

Violet pointed at a place on the drawing. “Why is that one standing so far away from the rest of them?”

“That’s Maxwell. None of the other Gremlings like him.”

“Why’s that?”

Mattie-Ann put down her crayon. She folded her hands over her drawing of the Gremlings, her little blue eyes looking off into the distance, before she said with a gravity that the voice of no nine-year-old should possess:

“He knows what he did.”

Violet laughed. She put a hand over her mouth, her face turning red. Mattie-Ann looked up at what she’d done to the very tall, very nice lady sitting next to her, and started smiling herself.

Miss Paige had a lovely smile, mad all the more precious that she so rarely used it. Tim Drake was not one to tell a woman that she would be prettier if she smiled more. But he was possessed of a wish, as fierce as it was sudden, that he was a funnier man.

It was Violet that Tim was looking at.

He told himself not to.

But then he ignored himself.

* * *

**THE THOMAS WAYNE MEMORIAL CLINIC**

At the moment Batman spread her cape along a field of light for the benefit of Gotham City’s television viewing public on The Night the Line was Crossed, Barbara Gordon awoke from her coma.

She’d had her neck surgery the night before, and now that she was awake, she was put on a morphine drip that put her right the hell back to sleep again.

At two PM the day after The Night the Line was Crossed, Dick Grayson made his way to the Thomas Wayne Memorial Clinic. He hugged and chatted up Dinah Lance-Choi and Helena Bertinelli in the waiting room, before he sought permission from Doctor Patty Jenkins to enter the room where Babs was resting.

Dick entered to find Barbara zonked out in bed, and a similarly sleeping Simon Baz in the chair there next to her.

He gently picked up a chair from the other side of the room, parked it next to Simon, and sat down.

It hurt seeing Barbara like this. Her face discolored, her neck in a neck brace, and her legs in casts. She was going to be in a wheelchair, even if only for a few months. He remembered the torment and anguish that Babs had gone through when The Joker severed her spine, and thinking about her going through it again gave him the chills. He had no idea what this was going to do to her psychologically, but the one fact he could cling to was that she was tough enough to handle it.

He pressed one hand to the shoulder of Simon’s leather jacket, waking him up, with his finger pressed to his lips. Simon jumped, saw Dick, remembered where he was, and sat up.

“Dick,” Simon said softly. “I see it but don’t believe it. You’re alive.”

He nodded.

“Cass faked your death? That’s what Dinah said.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Dick said, also softly. “I did die, but it didn’t stick. You know what Lazarus Pits are?”

Simon nodded.

“There you go,” Dick said. 

“Why are you here?” Simon asked. “I mean, I know why you’re here, but…”

Dick nodded, put his hand on Simon’s shoulder again, and said “Tag out, brother. I gotta be the one she sees when she wakes up next.”

Simon frowned at him. “You know I’m dating her, right?” 

“I do.”

“So shouldn’t _I _be the one she sees?”

Dick sighed, and looked at Simon with a tired smirk.

“Here’s how it’s gonna go down,” Dick said. “And I know how it’s gonna go down because I’ve been here a million times before.”

He folded his hands, and looked at Barbara.

“She’s gonna be surprised to see me,” Dick said. “That’s a given. And that’s when I’m gonna tell her everything. About Cass’ plan. About how she had Wonder Girl get me out of the morgue and put me in that Pit. And she’s gonna be mad. Babs is a brilliant woman, and she values how brilliant she is. She’s also proud. So when she’s mad, she’s gonna be mad at herself for not seeing any of this coming. But she can’t be mad at herself, at least not at first, so she’s going to be mad at Cass, and she’s going to be mad at me.”

“Aren’t you the one who died?”

“I am,” Dick said. “But even though she knows I couldn’t have contacted her without giving away Cass’ plan, she’s going to be mad at me that I didn’t do it anyway.”

Dick shifted in his chair. “Then… I’m going to tell her that she shouldn’t be mad at Cass. And if Babs gives even the tiniest shit about her relationship with that girl, the first words out of her mouth when she sees her next will be that she loves her, that she’s proud of her, and she’s sorry she didn’t trust her enough to let her do her job.”

Simon blinked a couple of times, and asked “Won’t that make her even madder though?”

“Yes,” Dick said smiling. “Yes it will. See… I ruined my relationship with Babs because I didn’t think Cassandra Wayne could handle the job of being the Bat in Gotham. And… I was wrong. She’s going to tell me that it’s big talk coming from me, telling her to apologize to Cass when I didn’t apologize myself. At which point, I’m gonna tell her I’ve apologized to Cass twice in the last twenty-four hours.”

Simon blinked in seeming curiosity when Dick looked at him.

“Don’t let the looks fool you,” Dick said. “I’m humble enough to eat some shit when I’m wrong. Cass did the job. And if I’m being completely honest, she did the job better than I ever could. I improvise. Cass is apparently really good at planning. And if I were Batman when Ra’s and Astrid hit, people would have died. So even though she’s mad at Cass, even though Dinah and Wally and Roy are mad at Cass, and even though my wife Bea is _really _mad at Cass… I’m not. I was dead for five hours. I’ve taken longer naps, and at the end of it, all my scars were gone and my back didn’t hurt anymore. And it saved lives. That’s the point.”

Dick wondered if his dip in the Lazarus Pit, in addition to making his nagging injuries disappear, also brought his sperm count back up to snuff. He and Bea had been trying for a baby, so far to no success beyond the simple joy of the procreational act, and both fertility experts they had been to had given him bad news on that score. If it was the case, then he had to thank Cass yet again, for quite a bit more.

He also wondered whether or not Simon knew that Babs was pregnant with Simon’s child. He reckoned that Simon shouldn’t hear it from him, so he didn’t mention it.

“Then I’m going to tell her something she really doesn’t want to hear,” Dick said.

“What’s that?” Simon asked.

“That being mad at Cass is the most Bruce Wayne thing she could possibly do.”

At the severity of such a statement, Simon Baz widened his eyes in horror.

“And I’m going to tell her that everyone wants to be better than Bruce Wayne until it’s _time _to be better than Bruce Wayne, and that even Bruce himself figured that one out. And honey… it is time to be better than Bruce Wayne.”

“She’s gonna be furious.”

“She is.”

“With two broken legs, she’s still gonna try and kick your ass.”

“She will,” Dick said, smiling yet again. “She’ll tell me how big an asshole I am, and then I’m going to leave. And when I do… That’s when you come in.”

He looked to Simon again, eyebrows raised in warmth.

“She’s gonna insult me, drag me, and tell you every embarrassing thing about me that she remembers,” Dick said. “And she has an eidetic memory, so it’s gonna take awhile. She’s going to tell you that not even death made me less of a schmuck, and when she does, you will agree with every word she says. You will at the very least smile at everything she says that’s even remotely funny. You will offer neither advice nor opinion. And when she asks you to do something, you will do it without hesitation or question. Because she needs a sounding board. She needs someone on her side. I am taking the hit for you, brother, because in order for her to forgive Cass, she needs to think it was her own idea. I’m here to be the bad guy, and you’re here to be the good guy. This way it won’t take so long, and the truth is, she does her best thinking when her back’s against the wall. Babs needs Cass a hell of a lot more than she needs me. And boy, does she need _you.”_

He looked back at Barbara again.

Back when they were dating, she’d said that she liked his bad jokes. She thought his habit of eating cereal at dinner time was adorable. His predilection towards leaving his socks everywhere was, at worst, annoying. But his habit of being right all the time? That was unforgivable.

He hoped he could be friends with her again after this. They’d spent six years away from one another. The relationship failed, but pride prevented them from being part of each others’ lives in any other capacity. And Dick didn’t know a stronger word for that than _“wrong.”_

Dick Grayson failed at being the love of Barbara Gordon’s life because he was foolish and stubborn. But that foolishness and stubbornness had given him Bea. It had given him happiness with a wife he loved. It had given Barbara Simon. And it had given Gotham City the Batman it had desperately needed for years.

Life was funny like that.

“You’re going to be one of the best things that ever happened to her,” Dick said.

After a slight pause, Simon asked “How can you be so sure?”

Dick smiled, looked at Simon, and said:

“Because you know she deserves it."


	36. And They Ain't Comin' Back

**Chapter 36: And They Ain’t Comin’ Back**

**WAYNE MANOR**

Night teetered on the verge of falling. The twilight offered a brief reprieve from the fog, however, and the sky glowed a heavy gold.

On a second floor den in the West Wing, Cassandra Wayne stood behind the bar, fixing herself a Cuba Libre in a tall glass. Her dad, Bruce Wayne, stood in front of the bar, struggling not to touch the bruises on his face.

Cassandra herself was still sore from the ass-kicking she had to tank from the Arkham Knight in that restaurant kitchen two days ago.

“Want one?” Cassandra asked.

“I don’t drink.”

“You don’t drink because you were Batman,” Cassandra said. “Now you’re not Batman anymore. And if I had to guess, you don’t _want _to be Batman anymore.”

“You’re right so far.”

“So now that you don’t _have _to keep yourself in tip-top condition if you really don’t _want _to… Want one?”

Bruce smiled. “I made it fifty-one years without touching a drop of alcohol. I’m kind of proud of that. Let’s keep the streak going.”

Cassandra shrugged and said “Suit yourself,” before reaching down into the fridge beneath the bar, getting a bottle of water, and handing it to Bruce.

They both went to plush leather chairs before a roaring fireplace. They sat down (both groaning from the previous week’s exertions as they did so) and started sipping their drinks in a comfortable silence.

“I’ve always wondered,” Bruce said. “When did you have your first drink?”

“I was eighteen,” Cassandra said. “Night of the Battle of Founders Island. Jason brought a six pack to the Amusement Mile house of mirrors when he tried to blow himself up with that bomb. I felt as though I needed to take it away from him. He needed to think clearly. Good thing too, because he’s still alive today.”

Bruce nodded. “And that’s when you developed your taste?”

“Yeah. Beer’s tasty. Which is something you’d know if you were adventurous.”

Bruce smiled, but that smile faded. Back to the silence.

“We need to discuss last night,” Bruce said.

“Okay,” Cassandra said. She felt a little bit of apprehension trying to pull her stomach in on itself. But she knew she was right.

“You do realize the pitfalls of the level of game you’re playing?” Bruce asked. “The trust of your peers--not your family, or your associates, but your _peers _\--is a precious thing. Once it’s gone, you’ll miss it.”

“That never seemed to stop you.”

“That’s because I was an idiot.”

“You were the World’s Greatest Detective,” Cassandra said.

“I was. But there’s a difference between being intelligent and being bright. I am a very intelligent man. But I willingly deceived my colleagues time and time again in regards to my intentions, and had the nerve to blame them when things blew up in my face. I had every opportunity to let go of my misery, but didn’t, because I was foolish enough to think it gave me an edge. I missed out on eleven years with Selina because I thought being happy would destroy me. I missed out on six years with Dick because I didn’t know how to talk to him, and didn’t bother to find out in the previous _twenty _years I knew him.”

He took a sip of water.

“I am a very intelligent man,” Bruce said. “But… I am not very bright.”

He leaned on the armrest of his chair, and looked at Cassandra.

“I want you to be bright,” Bruce said. “I want you to know what you’re playing with.”

Cassandra took a sip of her own drink, and turned over some thoughts in her head.

“Did you know,” Cassandra said, “that I cut reviews of my shows out of newspapers, highlight the lines about my performance, and mail them to David Cain and Lady Shiva in prison?”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Cassandra took a breath, and said “I was conceived and trained to be a murderer by those two… and they need to know they failed.”

She turned from the fire to her dad.

“I appreciate everything you, and Babs, and everyone else did for me,” Cassandra said. “I remember eating out of dumpsters after I killed that man and ran away from David Cain. I remember breaking into Goodwills at night and stealing clothes when the ones on my body turned into rags. I remember being unable to find shelter from rain and sleeping against a brick wall on one side of an alley that was facing away from the wind. And now?”

She raised his glass to him.

“Now I’m Batman,” she said. “Now I know how to read so well that I have all of Shakespeare memorized. Now I’m sitting here, drinking hooch, in front of a fire in a house I’m set to inherit one day, because the guy who owned it decided to adopt me. The question of gratitude really isn’t a question at all.”

Cassandra looked back at the fire.

_“But…”_

Another drink.

“...I’ve noticed something in the past fifteen years. Maybe I’m actually seeing it, maybe it’s my own insecurities, I don’t know. But I feel like it’s there.”

“What’s that?” Bruce asked.

Cassandra took a deep breath. “The older I’ve gotten… the more I feel like I’m a mascot. That I’m the after picture for the benefits of Gotham City’s rich folks. And everyone is just so… _so _proud of me. And they can point me out to all their friends and say _‘look at the good job I did,’ _when _I’m _the one who did all the work.”

She took another drink before she continued. “When I was learning to read, I snuck books with me on my Batgirl patrols. If I wasn’t fighting muggers and supervillains, every waking moment was spent trying to make sense of those little black letters on the big white page. Babs never knew I did that.”

“Neither did I.”

“No one did,” Cassandra said. “I did that myself. And I noticed all of you were… a little _too _satisfied with how well I was doing.”

She squinted into the fire. 

“I’m not a mascot,” Cassandra said. “I’m not a fashion accessory. I’m not a charity case. I’m not something tiny and adorable you can dress in funny clothes. You gave me Batgirl… But _Batman _I _took _. I am smarter than any of you realize, and I am scarier than any of you can fathom.”

At this point, she looked at Bruce. She felt that the look on her face might have been a bit meaner than she actually felt.

“And you all… _needed _… to know.”

For his part, Bruce’s expression didn’t change. She drank some more and looked back at the fire.

“I can take everyone being pissed off at me,” Cassandra said. “I really can. In fact, I can draw a correlation between the people who are pissed at me and the people who _aren’t _with the people who _needed _to know and the people who knew already.”

She furrowed her brow, curious. “Who _was _pissed off at me in that base when the message played?”

“Dinah,” Bruce said. “But I think she was upset on Barbara’s behalf. Have you been to see her yet?”

“Not yet,” Cassandra said. “Doctor Jenkins says it’s a little too early right now, but Dinah, Helena, Simon, even Dick have been down there. If you have to ask me, I think it’s because she asked Doctor Jenkins to lie for her. She doesn’t want to see me… Which is unfortunate.”

“She’ll power through it,” Bruce said. “She always does. She’ll get there eventually.”

Cassandra nodded. “I hope so. Who else?”

“Violet.”

“Of _course.”_

“If you weren’t heading off with Stephanie, I’d say your chances at a romantic reconciliation with her are shot.”

“They were shot to begin with,” Cassandra said. “She’s hung up on Tim now.”

Bruce, a stoic man to begin with, sported a look of confusion that bordered on the comical.

“Really?”

“I read body language,” Cassandra said. “And she was screaming without saying a word.”

“That’s… unsettling.”

“It really is,” Cassandra said with a smile. “What about everyone else?”

“Varying states between indifference and pride.”

“Pride?”

“Carrie went to the mat for you,” Bruce said. “She really did.”

“Carrie rules.”

“She said _‘You don’t fear her like you should.’”_

“And she was right, wasn’t she?”

Cassandra looked back at the fire. “What about you?”

“How did I feel about all of it?”

“Yeah.”

Bruce shifted in his chair. “Worried. Because like I’ve said, I’ve been in that situation and didn’t come out the best for it.”

“Are you still worried?”

“I know your context, now,” Bruce said. “I can see that. But at least you’re mindful of what you’ve done. I’d ask if you’d do it again, but I know there are no guarantees in your line of work.”

“Right.”

“After that, though?” Bruce asked. “Yeah, I’d say pride, too.”

Cassandra looked at him. 

“I did a good job,” Bruce said. “Not on you. Most of the work that needed to be done on you as a person you did yourself, even before you got to Gotham. I’m saying… now that my time is over and I can look back on it… I did a good job on myself.”

And he looked back at her.

“I spent decades hating myself for no reason,” Bruce said. “For something I couldn't prevent. I spent decades piling horror after horror on top of myself, because it was better that I go through it than anyone else. I did my best to chase the people who loved me away, convincing myself that it was for their own good, and not because being loved is a whole hell of a lot harder than being merely tolerated.”

He looked down at the bottle of water in his lap.

“And then… someone comes along, looks at me, and says to themselves _‘I want to do the things he does. I want to be the person he is, and not the person he sees himself as.’ _ And I look up, and… everything makes sense. I wasn’t a loner with a whole bunch of satellites. I was a good man people gravitated toward. I wasn’t surrounded by fellow vigilantes with a healthy respect for the common good, I was surrounded by people who _loved _me and cared more about whether I lived or died than I myself did. And after fifty-one years, I’m ready to enjoy that. I’m ready to _let myself _enjoy that.”

Cassandra looked back at the fire, not sure what to say next. A silence followed, warmer than the last.

“But know this,” Bruce said. “More than the people you love, you have to be mindful of the people you serve.”

“The people of Gotham,” Cassandra said. It wasn’t a question.

Bruce nodded. “Fifteen years ago, The Undying told Gotham that Batman was an act of the city’s collective will. Batman wasn’t born. Batman wasn’t made. Batman was _summoned. _ The city needed someone to save it, and Batman was the thing that came from it… And I think he might have been on to something.”

Cassandra squinted. “You make it sound like Batman is some kind of spirit that passes from person to person.”

“Not literally,” Bruce said. “But… Gotham isn’t like anywhere else. It has its own flow. It’s own ecosystem, its own desires, its own will. This place was going to need someone to protect it. I just gave the whole thing a name and a logo. But in another city, in another time, it would have been something else. This place has very specific demands.”

Cassandra nodded. “Well… I guess you can’t be Batman in Minneapolis.”

Bruce finished off his bottle of water.

“Have you told Stephanie yet?” He asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Cassandra said, "I want to see the look on her face when she finds out herself.”

* * *

Night fell.

Bruce and Cassandra left Wayne Manor. Bruce in his silver Mercedes, and Cassandra in the Batmobile.

Their vehicles took them deep into the concrete heart of Gotham City, both in search of the women they loved…

* * *

**HARLOW STREET**

Somehow, Bruce knew Selina would be here.

Throughout fifteen years of marriage, Selina Wayne still paid rent on the crummy, rathole apartment on Harlow Street in the East End that saw her through her days as Catwoman.

Though she was loath to show it, Selina Wayne was sentimental.

Bruce parked his Benz on the curb, got out, straightened out his flannel shirt, checked his beard in the driver-s side mirror for strays, before entering the building and walking the five flights of steps up, his ribs yelling at him the whole time.

The door was unlocked.

She knew he was coming.

Bruce Wayne hadn’t set foot in this apartment in over fifteen years, though it had seen some use in the interim as a makeshift base for Cassandra and Stephanie in their Orphan and Spoiler days. The last time he’d been here was the day he fought The Undying. The air had hung heavy with the smell of waffles. Stephanie Brown had been sitting on one of those little stools next to the kitchen counter. Bruce Wayne was Batman, and tried to pick the darkest corner in an apartment in broad daylight. 

Tonight, Selina stood in a gray hoodie and jeans that seemed to be painted on at the window sill. From his angle at the doorway, Bruce could see that she had a one-quarter empty bottle of scotch and a glass as company.

He knew she heard him come in, but she showed no sign of it.

One loud sniffle later, and Bruce knew she was crying.

Bruce walked up next to her, and looked out the window, at the view of Gotham Bay that should have made this apartment building more valuable than it actually was.

He didn’t look at her. He didn’t say a word. He simply put an arm around her waist. Fifteen years of marriage enabled him to ask her what was wrong using total silence.

Bruce heard the rustling of fabric, and only now did Bruce look at his wife. Her face was puffy, both from crying and from the discoloring bruises that Ra’s had given her last night. The line of black stitches at the top of her forehead highlighted just how pale she’d been after the past few days. With the amount of blood she’d lost, drinking might not have been the best idea.

Selina had her right hand in the pocket of her hoodie. She took her phone out, dragged her thumb across it a couple of times, and showed him the screen.

It was the headline of a _Gotham Gazette _article.

**WHO IS CATWOMAN?**

The photograph accompanying the article as a blurry one, taken last night of Stephanie Brown in her new Catsuit, as she helped the GCPD round up stray Squires of Burgess Avenue in front of the Vance Building.

She put the phone back in her hoodie, and let out a watery sigh.

“The _Gazette _reporter called me this morning before the article, asking for comment,” Selina said. “Asking if that was me or someone else.”

“What did you say?” Bruce asked.

“That wasn’t me, and as for anything else, I had no comment.”

Bruce nodded.

They turned to face each other. Bruce put his other arm around her waist, folding his hands at the small of her back. Selina reached out, and crooked the index finger of her right hand into the left pocket of his jeans.

She finally looked at him. Red eyes and a smile all the more sweet for seemingly coming against her will.

“There’s going to be something left of me when I’m gone,” Selina said. “I _mattered. _I _existed. _ Someone looked at me and thought to themselves _‘She’s so on the ball that I’m gonna do the thing she did.’ _ I am… I _was, _Sailor…”

He brushed a fly-away bit of black hair behind her left ear, before putting his hand back where it was.

“Have you told Stephanie any of this?” Bruce asked.

She snorted.

_“Fuck _no,” Selina said. “I want to, but I can’t. I’m not going to Steph all blubbery and snotty. It’s not how I operate.”

“Crying in front of the people you love can be very liberating,” Bruce said. “Therapeutic, even.”

Selina raised an eyebrow at him.

“So I’ve heard,” Bruce said.

“It’s just not done, Sailor. I’ll just… I’ll just calm myself down for however long that takes and be the same cool person I always am.”

To which Bruce nodded. He kissed her on the forehead.

“I remember the night we met,” Bruce said.

She looked up at him again.

“You were Catwoman,” Bruce said. “I was Batman. And you were ripping off Mallory Moxon’s yacht for jewelry.”

“It was cheap shit,” Selina said through a low chuckle. “And she had these creepy pictures of herself naked all over the place. Fucking rich people.”

Bruce had never raised one of his own eyebrows at Selina for a change. Maybe it had something to do with fear of reprisal. Nevertheless, he did so now.

Selina saw it.

“I have no idea what irony is,” Selina said. “That Irony bitch? I don’t know her.”

Bruce smiled.

“Anyway,” Bruce said, “I chased you off the yacht and into Miagani Island. You used your whip to get on top of a bus that was in motion. You tried to stand up. You got there, but you wobbled a bit, and to me, it looked like you were going to take a bow for a job well done. It looked ridiculous.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I laughed.”

_“Gee, thanks.”_

“No,” Bruce said. “You don’t understand. I was a sad little boy in a grown man’s body. I’d convinced myself I shouldn’t laugh at anything because what I was doing, because _the mission _was so important. But the truth is, I was terrified I’d never laugh again. You worked your way past all that, and…. _Wow.”_

Selina had stopped blinking.

“Then we had that fight on the rooftop,” she said.

“That’s right.”

“You dodged every punch and kick I tried to throw at you.”

“Yes.”

“Dick move, Sailor.”

He took his hands from her waist, and started rubbing her arms, before finally resting his hands on her biceps.

“We _danced,” _Bruce said. “I let you tell me your life story. You were… You were this living thing in a city that tries to put a stop to that sort of thing. You were _passionate, _you were _bold, _you were… _everything. _ Watching you move was the most fun I’d had since I was eight years old.”

Bruce moved his hands to the side of her face.

“You were always going to matter, Selina.”

Selina tilted her head… blinked a couple of times…

...and then started crying again.

“Oh, _fuck you,” _Selina said, before burying her face in the shoulder of his flannel shirt and letting her tears seep in.

“Let it out.”

“I’ll kill you for this.”

“There we go.”

“I’ll… I’ll pay a Blackgate inmate to rub his nuts on the steering wheel of your Porsche.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And I won’t even tell you _which _Porsche. You’ll spend the rest of your life not knowing.”

He ran his hands up and down her back, until her crying jag stopped, and she pulled away, wiping the tears from her cheeks with her palms.

“Do you want to sit down on the couch over there?” Bruce asked.

“No.”

“You sure?”

“I don’t want to sit down,” Selina said. “My lower back is killing me.”

Bruce, whose ribs were killing _him, _said “Good call.”

Selina sighed, and said “Tomorrow’s Halloween.”

“Our anniversary. Fifteen years.”

“I made reservations at Dini’s,” Selina said. “Seven o’clock.”

“We had lunches all the time there when you were running Kyle Security,” Bruce said. “That’s romantic.”

“Don’t set me off again, Sailor.”

“I won’t.”

“After that… I don’t know,” Selina said.

“What do you mean?” Bruce asked.

Selina sighed. “What I mean is… We’re _old. _ Our livelier days are behind us, and it’s time we started acting out ages…. Jesus, Sailor, I was nineteen a minute ago. I don’t _want _to act like a fifty-one-year-old.”

“Then don’t.”

“But I have to.”

“Look at me, Selina.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You’re gonna make me start bawling again.”

“Hand to God,” Bruce said, “I won’t.”

Selina finally relented, and looked at him.

“No one’s ever told you what to do,” he said. “Don’t start now. If you want to solve cold fusion tomorrow? Get into a bar fight? Anything you want to do is the thing fifty-one-year-olds do now by simple virtue that _you’re _doing them. You don’t have to be right with the world, Selina, the _world _has to be right with _you.”_

Selina’s eyes had a sheen to them, a kind of twinkle. Not the eve of another crying jag, no, but a precursor to mischief.

“You’re sexy when you’re reassuring,” she said. “Whatever’s going on in that head of yours, I smell _fun _coming off of it.”

He smiled.

Bruce kissed Selina on the lips, before dragging his own softly across her slick left cheek to her ear.

He whispered.

“Truth or Dare?”

* * *

There exists, in the hipster haven of Burnside, an unnamed park.

Around the periphery of this park is a ring of red tulips.

But at the center of the park is a plaque.

And this plaque reads:

**In loving memory of  
** **MARIA TELLIS  
** **The hero we needed, but we didn’t deserve you.**

In the three year disappearance of Batman between the death of The Joker and the rise of The Undying, Maria Tellis made her own costume and became a superhero with the intent of protecting one square block of Burnside.

She called herself _“The Green Comet.”_

Her career as a superhero was brief, and brutally short. The mob sicced Victor Zsasz on her, only for Zsasz and Maria to be the first in-person victims of The Undying. Maria Tellis died from a dose of Joker Venom at the tragically young age of twenty-four.

However…

The Maria Tellis on Earth 803 had a ripple effect throughout The Multiverse. She was the first to become The Green Comet, and in the Earths beyond, as though they heard her, several other Maria Telllises started making their costumes.

The Green Comet of Earth 144 was the vanguard of the Justice League’s assault on Apokolips, where she defeated Dirty Harriet in single combat.

The Green Comet of Earth 921 became the leader of the Birds of Prey after that planet’s Helena Bertinelli bombed the Clock Tower while under Psimon’s mind control.

The Green Comet of Earth 11 (where everyone is gender-swapped) started fighting crime in Star City at roughly the same time Gotham City native Michael Tellis started dating Rose _“Arsenal” _Harper. He was cool with the whole single mom thing, don’t worry.

The Maria Tellis of Earth 803 started something she did not live to see. Her tenure as one of Gotham City’s defenders was brief and unambitious, but was responsible for saving billions of lives in the Earths beyond.

Good for her.

On the sidewalk next to this park, on the way to his night job at a coffee shop on Jericho Street, seventeen-year-old Carl Mendoza made his slow stride.

Young Mister Mendoza was not immune to the magic of this singular night in Gotham City. Last night was The Night the Line was Crossed. Tomorrow was Halloween. But Carl felt he was in a singular, suffocating pocket away from all that magic.

For Carl was thinking about girls, and his heart hurt.

The object of Carl’s affection was Gloria Wilson, the pretty brunette with whom he sat a row away from in third period German. She had this way of chewing on her pencil eraser, this other way of biting her lip when she scrolled through her phone that… that _just…_

Carl stopped and used his whole body to heave a sigh, before he started walking again, wondering if she knew he existed at all.

Over at the Seudio apartment building on the edge of Tricorner, Gloria Wilson stared at her bedroom wall in her family’s apartment, listening to slow, sad music and feeling all emo shitty about herself.

For visions of one Carl Mendoza flashed in her head.

Teenagers are the _best_ kind of stupid, aren’t they?

One floor beneath the Wilson apartment in the Seudio, eighty-three-year-old Irma Graves was setting mouse traps near the windows and doors.

The man who lived two doors down snuck into her apartment late at night and stole her liver medication. When he broke in tonight while she slept, these mouse traps would show him a thing or two.

For the record, the man who lived two doors down, twenty-eight-year-old Jamaica native Cedric Piper, was not stealing Irma Graves’ liver medication.

He did, however, have the suspicion that the old lady who lived two doors up was _really _fucking racist.

Cedric was, at this very moment, over on Miagani Island, charging up his electric taxi with which he made his living at a Sinclair charging station on Thirty-Fifth Street. Out of the front of this charging station, holding a bottle of Pepsi and a Slim Jim, was thirty-one-year-old Olivia Finch. She saw Cedric’s cab, weighed her options, and opted against taking the cab over to Founders Island. She’d take the bus. It was cheaper.

Olivia had to work two jobs to take care of her three-year-old son Anthony. One of them was daytime data entry at Kord Industries. The other (at which she needed to go tonight) was night-time janitorial work at…

* * *

**THE BREYFOGLE BUILDING**

...upon the roof of which, at this very moment, Catwoman stood. 

At the edge of Tozawa Boulevard, Batman ejected herself from the cloaked Batmobile while it drove itself in a circuit around Founders Island. She fired her grapnel gun as her cape spread, bringing her up and up into the clear night sky.

Batman landed on the roof of the Breyfogle Building on one knee, about ten feet away from Catwoman. She stood. They two beheld each other.

And they both smiled.

“Alfred?” Catwoman asked. “How do you bring the mask down on this suit?”

_“Just ask,” _the Alfred VI said.

“Ya mind?”

_“Not at all.”_

The eggplant-colored nanites of Catwoman’s mask sauntered down in a thick sludge to her neckline, revealing Stephanie Brown’s hair.

Stephanie Brown’s blonde hair.

“I think the shade’s a little too light,” Stephanie said, “But it’ll have to do until it grows back in. What do you think?”

Batman could not speak.

She knew there was a thirty-three year old woman standing before her, but in this dim light, it was the nineteen-year-old girl who walked away from Gotham all those years ago.

“Cass?”

Batman snapped herself out of it. “Uhhhhhhhh…”

“That nice, huh?”

“Yes. Yes it is.”

Stephanie smiled. “Mask back up, please, Alfred.”

The sludge worked her way back up, and she was Catwoman again.

Batman and Catwoman walked toward each other. They became tangled in each other’s arms. Their lips met. The city around them politely vanished until they broke contact.

Catwoman looked at the Gotham skyline as Batman caught her breath.

“I wonder if it was like this for them,” Catwoman said. “For Selina and Bruce back in the day. If it had this atmosphere? If the city felt like… like this tense, bursting thing so full of promise. Like you could go in any direction, and… and I dunno.”

“Can I ask you a question?” Batman asked.

“Shoot.”

“Why did you fall in love with a mute, illiterate ninja?”

“Because that mute, illiterate ninja was fine as Hell.”

“Be serious.”

“I _am _serious,” Catwoman said. “That suit you wore to Bruce and Selina’s wedding? You were the sexiest thing I’d ever seen in my life. Till now, at least. That armor of yours is _snug.”_

“Was there anything else?” Batman asked.

“Of course there was,” said Catwoman. “You were dead set on improving yourself, no matter what it was you were trying to improve. You’d vanish in the Clock Tower’s holoroom for hours on end just to train, even though you could already kick everyone’s ass. You’d try to read, even when you didn’t know how, and throw the book at the wall when you got frustrated. You’d try, and try, and try to beat me at _Mortal Kombat X, _even though you never did.”

“I want my rematch.”

“I’m retired.”

“Wuss.”

“I’m the undefeated champion.”

“You’re the undefeated _wuss.”_

They both smiled.

“A smiling Batman,” Catwoman said. “Will wonders never cease?”

“I hope they don’t.”

“You know maybe I _should _have that rematch,” Catwoman said. “I’m not gonna be doing anything during the day. I”m gonna need a day job if I’m staying here. Christ, I’ll need a new identity. Think TJ Maxx is hiring?”

Batman smiled.

Because Cassandra Wayne knew something that Stephanie Brown did not.

When Kate Kane made her exodus to Themyscira twelve years ago, she didn’t tell anyone besides the family and friends that knew she was Batwoman, for fear of compromising her identity.

Which meant that ten years ago, Kate Kane had been declared legally dead.

Upon the passing of family patriarch Jacob Kane five years ago, the entirety of the Kane fortune went to Kate’s cousin Bette.

However, that still left the matter of Kate Kane’s personal holdings, which included the RH Kane Building, as well as investments and liquid assets which had been sitting in escrow for a decade.

Investments and liquid assets valued at two-point-eight billion dollars.

Kate did update her will before she let for Lesbian Candy Land with Diana, dictating that her building and her cash… would go to Stephanie Brown upon her return to Gotham City.

Stephanie Brown was a billionaire.

She was also Cassandra Wayne’s landlady.

Batman didn’t know how she’d take that last one.

“What are you smiling at?” Catwoman asked.

Batman, still smiling, said “I’m sure you’ll land on your feet… No pun intended.”

Cassandra wanted to see the look on Stephanie’s face when the lawyer came over and told her the good news. Coming to Gotham for six million dollars, and staying for about three billion and the girl of her dreams.

She wanted to see the look of a woman who had given up all hope fourteen years ago finally getting acquainted with the fact that she was right the first time. That good things happened to good people and the heroes won.

Catwoman’s eyes sauntered down to Batman’s chest. She reached out and placed her hand on the Bat symbol.

“Hard as you worked on everything else,” Catwoman said. “You worked hardest for that. That was what a good person was to you. How could anyone not fall in love with that?”

She took her hand away, and tilted her head, her blue eyes looking down at Batman.

“Now your turn,” Catwoman said.

“You saw me,” Batman said. “Not where I came from, not what I could do. _Me. _ There was someone in here that even _I _didn’t know about. An inner life. A private mind. And… _Jesus. _ How’d you do that?”

Catwoman snorted. But her face eventually stilled, and she looked out again. Out on the buildings coming up from the soil, piercing the sky.

“We stand on rooftops in the dead of night, and we wait,” Catwoman said. “And we wait. We wait for the siren. We wait for the shot. We wait for the scream. And down we go. Through the shadows, we put the wrong things right. We stop bad things from happening. We send people home safe. That’s a life, Cass. That’s _the _life. And I missed fourteen years of it.”

She looked at Batman with a strange mixture of both loss and resolution.

“Hindsight,” Catwoman said. “It gets you every time. I should have stayed. Even wondering about what I did to my dad, even knowing how awful Gotham City was going to be the daughter of the guy responsible for Game Seven, I should have stayed. If I knew what I know now, I would have.”

They kissed again. Soft. Firm. Their tongues touching for the briefest of instants before they both pulled away. Batman still had her eyes closed, and when Catwoman spoke, her breath got in her mouth.

“You and I had to be together,” Catwoman said. This? This was _inevitable.”_

Batman opened her eyes.

“How can you be so sure?” she asked.

Catwoman opened her eyes as well.

She had that look that she got in the old days. When Stephanie Brown had gotten hold of the obvious, and was waiting for everyone else to catch up. Making Cassandra Cain feel like the best sort of fool.

“Batman’s supposed to fall in love with Catwoman,” she said. “That’s how this goes, right?”

* * *

_...but it does on occasion rhyme.” _\- Anonymous

* * *

** _THE END_ **


End file.
